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The best thing we did with our concrete floors.

Before building our Jacks Point home in Queenstown, we ‘uhmmed and ahhhed’ over this decision a fair bit- whether to have underfloor heating or not. We committed to putting polished concrete floors in most of our downstairs area which includes- open plan living, dining, kitchen, hallway, and main bathroom. But we weren’t sure whether to then make the investment in underfloor heating for the floor.

Upon asking people we had mixed responses:
“Do it for resale value”- fair point, even if we didn’t want it, some day if we ever came to sell it then it might be a really important option for someone else, BUT, we were building this home for us as a family home, not to sell so was there any point incorporating it ‘just incase’, especially if we weren’t going to use it.
“We have it and we never use it, the sun heats the floor enough for us”- at the time, I knew no better so I thought, hmm interesting straight from someone with a concrete floor… perhaps it is un-necessary.
“We have it and it’s the only heating source we need to use in our home- it keeps the whole house such a lovely temperature”- and this was when we started getting confused- two people living with concrete floors, two very different experiences.

So we started to do the research. And it was when doing research that we made the decision to lock in underfloor heating for sure, but not on its own, we decided to combine it with a MAXRaft slab (see our post earlier about the MAXRaft for more detail on this). To me, putting the underfloor heating in was sensible, but without the MAXRaft slab, was a waste of investment. As I have explained in the earlier blog post, if this thermal break with an insulated slab is not created, we could end up losing the same amount of heat as leaving a window open in the middle of winter. So the combination of underfloor heating and a MAXRaft slab was pivitol to ensure our investment in the heating was going to pay off. (To ensure a house that is going to retain heat to its best ability, windows and building wrap are also important decisions, as are other elemnts of your build. There are more on these in previous blogs so make sure you take a look).

Cost wise, it was about $7000 extra on our build cost to include the underfloor heating, but the savings come in the long run which makes it far worth spending that money. We moved into our house in December and as I am writing this it is now mid May. Here in Queenstown the temperatures get pretty low (I feel like that is an understatement) about this time of year and we started using the underfloor heating when the temperatures started moving into single digit temps. In the summer months we had a couple of discussions about the fact that it was pretty cool how the floor didn’t feel cold, so perhaps we weren’t going to need it on in the winter after all. WELL, when it started to get cold, I took that back. I mean, you could cope without it on, wear socks and slippers and all that jazz and not really notice, but having it on and being able to walk around in bare feet is absolulutely dreamy. It is one of the first things people comment on when they walk into our home- how lovely the ground is and how surprised they are at how warm it feels in the open plan space for such a big space. It’s hard to describe because used properly, its not that the floor is particularly warm, but its certainly not cold and it keeps the whole room at the same kind of feel- a real even kind of heat.
It’s a bit of fun these days to get visitors to stand with one foot on the pantry floor and the other on the kitchen floor and feel the difference because wow you quickly get brought back to the potential reality by standing in the pantry. (You of course don’t heat the pantry area because of the need to keep the area cool for your food storage).
SO if you are thinking about opting out of putting underfloor heating into your concrete slab when you build in Queenstown, I would suggest visiting a friend who has it and asking to stand in an area of their home that doesn’t have the piping (pantry, garage, sometimes the very sides of the room). I genuinely think that would be enough to change your mind. Or if you are in Queenstown you are always welcome to our house to try out our pantry trick!

We went with AIRMAX for our underfloor heating. The instalation was easy, the guys who came to do it were great and they were fabulous to deal with. And when we moved in they came and showed us how to use it and suggested best settings to have it on.
It seems that the best option is to have it come on for a few hours in the morning and let it then switch off, as the slab (especially when it is a well insulated MAXRaft one) holds the heat really well. Then for it to come on again later just before a heavy traffic time, and do the same again. On our system this is called Holiday mode and you can alter and set the temperatures as you wish. It is an air to water heatpump system where the heatpump is used to heat and distribute water through the pipes to warm the slab. We have found the reponse time to be very good, it doesn’t take long at all to recognise the heat start charging through the foor when it is on and then when it isn’t set to be warming up (for those few hours in the morning and afternoon) and is on a floating setting, the concrete keeps the warmth really well.

Underfloor heating is arguably the most luxurious form of heating as its radiant heat is evenly distributed throughout the room—wall to wall, floor to ceiling—right where you feel it the most. It is really, really lovely and has surprised us with how much we love it (as real fire lovers here) and the biggest downsize to it is that because it keeps the room so warm, we aren’t needing to use our fire as much as we would like.
Other advantages include:
-being warmer down at the living level and not all up in the cieling- great for families.
-increasing re-sale value (especially in our particular setting)
-the thermal mass of an underfloor heating systems provides warmth for longer after switching off than would traditional heating systems
– carries virtually no maintenance cost
-saves money on heating bills by helping you avoid using other heating systems that cost
-and of course runs extremely quietly.

We aren’t selling any prodcuts here, just literally passing on our experiences to you.

So if the question you ask is…. “should we put underfloor heating in if we are having a concrete floor?” The answer is… YES, absolutely, DO IT. YES if you are building a home in Queenstown, but also YES if you are building anywhere else and want to make the best decision for the health of your family.