Can anybody advise me on this. I have seen a few houses that have this in the tiled areas (hallways, bathrooms) and wonder if a) is it expensive to run b) is it possible to control it i.e. turn it off in summer?
Can anybody advise me on this. I have seen a few houses that have this in the tiled areas (hallways, bathrooms) and wonder if a) is it expensive to run b) is it possible to control it i.e. turn it off in summer?
Hiya M! We must get together soon, I've missed our lunchtime meetups at cafes.
OK another friend of mine who lives out in the Wairarapa has a big old vineyard house with underfloor heating. It's extremely comfortable, however they do complain it's expensive to run. I don't know how easy it is to turn off (must be possible). I should point out that they have pretty high ceilings, about a couple of feet taller than ours.
I have a friend that has this in her kitchen. She tells me that it's really expensive to run. She also has a holiday home that has it. One month the holiday home wasn't even fully occupied and the electric bill came in at $600. She does think this is due to other heaters being used in the house and people not turning things off in the same way you would in your own home.... but still! She also said that the one they have in the bathroom floor has gone wrong and to fix it, it will need to have the floor ripped up.
I'm sure there are people out there with positives to say about it but she has put me off installing it when we build our house.
Have it in our hallway and bathrooms. Had it on for the first 2 weeks and then the electric bill arrived. Couldn't justify the 400 dollars when I could get a pair of slippers for 20 bucks
was in the bathrooms of our first rental. Not particularly effective (IMHO) as never in their long enough to feel the benefit. Extremely expensive to run when coupled with the unbelievable cost of electricity in NZ.
Have to say it wont be installed in our new house
Well we have underfloor in our tiled kitchen and diner. These are electrical elements which are switchable and controllable.
To be honest we don't have them on much except the deepest darkest depths of winter, when we have them on low to take the chill off. If you turn them up then they become real money eaters!
Rod
We decided against underfloor heating. For starters the cost of installation was a minimum of $15,000, then the heating bills would have been high. We are having a couple of heat pumps installed at less than half the price. We have a heat pump in the apartment we are in now and it is more than adequate and we only need it on a short time as due to good insulation the apartment stays warm for a long time. In the bathrooms we are having infra red lights/heaters. We found these to be very adequate when we first came over as they were in the house we rented.I know people say heat pumps are expensive but we do not find this to be the case. It depends how good your insulation is. Compared to underfloor heating, heat pumps are cheaper to run IMHO plus we have air conditioning in the summer.Another point to remember is it is very expensive to repair if it goes wrong
Can you not have the best of both worlds? An underfloor heating system of the wet type heated by heatpumps? If you are building it is hard to believe that putting the pipework in is a huge cost; you'd want good floor insulation anyway.
We had a rental that had this. It extended from the tiled kitchen area into the carpeted lounge. Very warm, Very expensive.
Was controlled by a standard room stat, and was only on for the winter.