Most of us are aware how amazing floor heating is. The absolute luxury of the feeling of your entire floor radiating warmth throughout your room is to die for. Imagine your children or pets lying on the warmth of a tiled floor.
It’s no wonder that TV Shows like The Block have been featuring Hotwire in nearly every bathroom for years. (Many of the contestants have continued to use Hotwire in future projects they have worked on.)
So we know that floor heating is luxurious and most of us want it in our bathrooms, but can you afford it? Is it worth the expense?
In short, “Of course it is!”
Let me break it down for you.
There are a variety of different floor heating options in the market. The following analysis is based on In Screed or Under Tile Heating.
There are two factors to consider when evaluating any form of heating. There is the up front cost of the purchase and the ongoing running costs.
Running Costs (Definition)
Let’s look at the running costs first.
You should expect running costs of approximately 2 c every m2 every hour. So your average bathroom with 4-5 m2 of exposed floor area would only cost 8-10c an hour. Most people would only have their bathroom heating running for around 3-4 hours a day. So for 40c a day you can enjoy the absolute luxury of floor heating every morning. Even if you run your floor heating for 5 or 6 hours a day, it would cost less per week than one take away coffee.
This does assume that your home is well insulated (check out this awesome article on retrofitting wall insulation) and you are not trying to get your floor hot enough to fry an egg! For most people this is a very realistic estimate of the cost to run their heating. It is also much cheaper than any other option to heat your bathroom.
What about a living area? If we assume an average 40m2 living area, the same maths applies. So, 40m2 at 2c per m2 is 80c per hour. So if you have your heating running for 4 or 5 hours of an evening you would expect running costs of 80c x 5 or $4.
Again less than a take away coffee. This cost is also very comparable to other forms of heating.
You can even use our cost calculator on our website to get more detailed information.
Purchase Costs
But, what about the purchase costs?
Again Hotwire is probably much more affordable than you might think.
In an average bathroom you would have your floor heating fully installed for a tick under $1,000. This includes the fully programmable touch screen thermostat.
Less than you thought?
In a living room you would expect to have the 40m2 area we discussed earlier fully installed for around $3,000.
If you want an exact price use the RRP calculator on our website.
You may have some additional electrical costs to supply power but these are not significant.
So there you have it. The breakdown of costs to supply and install Hotwire floor heating.
Click here to get a detailed quote on your requirements.
