Is Electric Underfloor Heating Expensive To Run?

This is always going to be a tricky one to answer, mainly because there are so many variables involved and each property is different. Things that will affect the running costs in a house are un-insulated floors, no double glazing, no cavity wall insulation, and humans!

Yes humans - what feels warm to you might not be warm for me and on it goes, we all have different comfort levels and this too will have an effect on the running cost.

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Underfloor heating has been proven to reduce overall heating costs by up to 40%; this is achieved by having a more comfortable temperature at a lower setting thus not using as much electricity to heat the home. If you think of the whole floor gently radiating heat from the feet upwards past the body you will naturally feel warmer and since the heat cools down as it rise's past you, you wont feel stuffy around your head, unlike radiators.

Radiators use convection heat, which means simply that the heat rises straight up to the ceiling, cools down and comes back down creating drafts!

Most modern underfloor heating systems on the market today incorporate high tech digital thermostats to regulate the temperature and maximise energy efficiency, one of the market leading thermostats is the AUBE TH-132-F, this stat incorporates a PIR microprocessor that analysis the systems past performance in order to optimise future commands, at the beginning of each cycle it sends out a signal that defines how long it will heat during the next cycle, in order to save energy.

To calculate running costs you need to firstly find out how many watts per m² you have, then times the watts by the amount of m² you do have, this will then tell you how many Kwatts you have in order to work out the consumption and cost. We will base this example on a 150w per m² system at 10m² floor space -

10m² x 150w = 1500w /1000 to give you the Kw = 1.5Kw x 0.08p (or what ever you pay for a Kilo watt of electric) = 12p per hour on full power, then once the system has warmed up to temperature it will run on about 40% of power to keep it at that set temperature 12p x 40% = 4.8p per hour thereafter.

The above is a crude way of working it out but will give you a general idea, it's not an exact calculation but does go along in helping you calculate how much it could cost, the above is also based on having a modern home with well insulated floors and windows.

Is Electric Underfloor Heating Expensive To Run?

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