Underfloor heating: The 3 most popular questions
Visualize this.
It's a snowy Sunday morning, you've just woken up from a good night's sleep wrapped up in your blankets, and your little inner voice is telling you to go make your classic morning coffee before starting the day. You jump out of bed and head firmly to the kitchen. When you arrive in the kitchen, the bliss of your warm and comforting bed continues! Why is that? Because to accompany your delicious hot drink, your feet still enjoy the same comfort thanks to your new heated floor.
Whether you live in a high-end residence, a rustic or country house, a small condo that you love as if it were your castle, there is no predefined social class to afford warm feet!
Contrary to popular myths, heated floors are not a luxury that only the very wealthy can afford!
We answer the most frequently asked questions we receive!
- How much does underfloor heating cost?
- Where can I install this? And under what type of flooring?
- The electricity bill is already high enough, with this I'm going to pay even more?
1. Cost! The most asked question without a doubt.
It is certain that covering an entire house would be expensive. Because the prices go according to the number of square feet you want to cover.
For a regular sized bathroom, 7' x 9'. It must be taken into consideration that the heated floor will not be installed in the entirety of this surface. It will not be installed under the bathtub or under an acrylic shower base or other. It is also necessary to leave a clearance around the toilet. So if we remove all these elements, more or less 35-40 square feet must be covered. If we calculate the adhesive cement, the membrane to accommodate the wire, the wire as well as a thermostat, the cost of a heated floor for a bathroom of this size would be around $740.00 + taxes. However! If we consider that when we renovate a room, normally, it is for more or less 10 years. Seen this way... The "luxury" of getting a radiant floor is $80.00 per year! Not bad right? ;)
2. Schluter heated floors can be installed almost anywhere! However, there are some exceptions and conditions.
Let's start with the most obvious, ceramic & porcelain! These products are a fabulous combination with a radiant floor. Because they are temperature conductors! This means that even when you turn off the system, the floor will still remain warm for some time and will gradually cool down. These products conduct both heat and cold...! The reason why in winter, your ceramic floors are very cool underfoot!
Now, laminate and vinyl floating floors! We can't generalize, because it all depends on the distributors. So we will refer to our products, sold by Plancher 2000, in the explanations that follow.
Most of our vinyl and laminate floating floors can be installed over a heated slab. But! The floor temperature must not exceed 26 degrees Celsius. Between you and me, it is rare that people go to this temperature on the floor anyway! At 22 degrees, it is warm and very comfortable. However, unlike ceramic and porcelain, these materials do not store heat, so once the system is turned off, the surface will cool down more quickly.
Finally, wood! Since solid wood requires a nailed installation on plywood, these cannot be installed on a radiant surface. However, engineered wood floors can! During installation, they must be glued directly to the radiant slab. However, there are certain types of wood such as hickory that react less well. Hickory is a wood that reacts well to humidity, but less to drier temperatures. So always find out if the wood type you choose is compatible!
3. Will you pay more for electricity?
The answer is no! Because by respecting the building standards, you can remove the electric baseboards from the rooms to replace them with radiant floors. They do not generate more energy than your electric baseboards, even less! Since the heat comes directly from the floor, it is better distributed and radiates more uniformly.
Other important features that should not be overlooked are to always find out how it works. For some types of heated floors, you must wait 30 days after installation before starting it. Even if 24 to 48 hours after installation you can walk and move around on the surface, this does not mean that all the alloys in the cement-glue are solidified. Early activation of the system could harm the solidification of the alloys.
So what are you waiting for to treat yourself to this “affordable luxury”?
Visit one of our branches or online to get it!
