How much does underfloor heating cost?

31 Jan 2019

Underfloor heating used to be seen as the luxury option, but it’s becoming more and more common, particularly in new builds. But how much does an underfloor heating installation cost and how do you keep the price down?

Is underfloor heating expensive to install?

The cost of underfloor heating installations varies considerably and there are many factors to take into account, including size of room, floor surface, type of system etc etc. To accurately cost up underfloor heating it is best to get quotes from at TDL for materials and a few installers to fit.

You can get a ballpark figure for some underfloor heating systems, though. For example, we offer a Polypipe quote service. To take advantage of this, you’ll need to know the size of the space where you want to install your underfloor heating. That means measuring each room. If your room is a simple rectangle, use a tape measure to find the length of one of the shorter walls and one of the longer walls in metres. Then multiply the two numbers to give the area in square metres. If your room is not rectangular, break it into rectangular sections, measure each and add them together. You can send plans into TDL with information on what floor type and they can configure full quote for you.

And of course, you can always ask the TDL Online team: they’ll be happy to help with your queries.

Can you DIY an underfloor heating installation?

Installation of a Polypipe underfloor heating system is best to be done by a Polypipe Registered Installer. Having said that, one of the great advantages of our favourite wet underfloor heating system Polypipe is that it is fairly easy to install, which means your engineer will charge less.

A DIY electric underfloor heating installation is possible – but if you have any doubts we very much recommend getting a trained professional with expertise in underfloor heating. Some systems, like Devi, which we stock , consist of heating mats which are laid in pre-wired batches.

Do I need to dig up the floor to put in underfloor heating?

Absolutely not! Electric underfloor heating is not covered in screed, so there is no need to excavate during installation. Some wet systems do require screeding over – but not all. We offer Polypipe options that sit on top of your existing floors: check out our Overlay room packs.

What are the running costs of underfloor heating?

Ah, that’s a good question. So, as a rule of thumb, electric underfloor heating systems are typically the pricier option. That’s because wet underfloor heating systems run on gas, and gas is cheaper than electricity. We’ve seen studies that suggest that underfloor heating improves efficiency by between 15 and 40%. It can be difficult to estimate how much a wet underfloor heating system costs to run. But an electric system is fairly easy to cost up. The system will have a kw per hour per square metre rating. Multiply this by the number of square metres you have installed to find out how much electricity the whole installation will use in an hour. And then multiply that figure by your electric company’s cost per kw. That will tell you how much money your heating will cost to run for an hour.