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What it is

Electric floor heating, room by room

Heating elements sit in the floor build-up beneath the finished covering. The room has a thermostat of its own, and the rest of the house does not need to know about it.

This is the comfort job. One room, or a few, sized against the area of floor rather than against the heat loss of a building, and switched by the person standing in it.

Mat where the layout is regular, loose cable where it is not. A floor sensor reads the slab or screed temperature and the thermostat runs to that number, so the floor holds a temperature rather than chasing the air.

Everything that decides how the floor performs — the area, the watt density, the spacing, where the sensor sits — is settled on a layout drawing before a reel is opened. That drawing comes back with the quote.

Heating a whole building from the concrete it stands on is the same technology at a different scale, and it has its own page. Electric in-slab heating

Bare feet resting on a sunlit warm floor
Where it goes

Bathrooms, kitchens, and floors over cold space

Named by the room rather than the part code. The Danfoss line behind each one is on the right.

01

Bathrooms and ensuites

The room most people ask about first, because tile underfoot reads cold whatever the air temperature says. Small areas, regular shapes, usually a mat.

Tile, stone, wet rooms

Danfoss LX
Mats
02

Kitchens, entries and mudrooms

Hard flooring in the rooms that take the weather in off the street. A heated floor dries what gets tracked in rather than leaving it to sit.

Kitchens, entries, mudrooms, halls

Danfoss LX
Mats or cable
03

Rooms over unheated space

A floor above a garage, a crawl space or an open porch loses heat downwards all winter. Warming the floor itself treats the surface people actually touch.

Over garages, crawl spaces, porches

Danfoss LX
Cable
04

One room at a time

A renovation where the covering is coming up anyway is the moment the system costs least to add. Each area runs off its own thermostat, so the work can stop at one room and still be finished.

Renovations, single rooms, phased work

Danfoss LX
Thermostat per area
Specification

Output, product and warranty, from the catalogue

Manufacturer figures for the LX line, from the Danfoss catalogue. Values Danfoss publishes only per product are settled on the layout drawing that comes back with the quote.

Output

Watt density
97–194W/m²
Connected load
Per layout

Product

Mats
LX
Loose cable
LX
Controls
LX thermostats
Sensor
Floor sensor

Warranty

Condition
Recorded readings
Terms
Manufacturer
Installation

Laying a mat under tile, and the three readings

The system goes in once, under a covering nobody will lift again for decades. The resistance readings are the part a general trade tends to skip, and they are what the warranty file rests on.

Every job starts as a drawing.

Area, watt density, spacing, sensor position and connected load are settled on paper first, because the covering goes down on top of the cable and the layout cannot be revised afterwards.

Dry-Ways supplies the system and can install it. Where another contractor is doing the work, the layout, the load and the test regime are still issued with the order, because the warranty depends on them.

See the full installation sequence

  1. Insulate under the floor

    Heat goes both ways. Insulation under the heated build-up is what sends the output up into the room instead of into the structure below it.

  2. Test on delivery

    Ohm reading taken before anything is unrolled, to prove the cable did not take damage in transit.

  3. Lay out and fix

    Mat or cable set out to the spacing the layout drawing calls for, with the floor sensor in a conduit so it can be replaced without lifting the covering.

  4. Test before the covering goes down

    Second reading once everything is fixed and the cold leads are run back to the panel.

  5. Read it again once it is buried

    The final reading is the last chance to find a fault, and it is what closes the warranty file. It is the same three-reading regime a slab gets.

  6. Commission the controls

    Thermostat and floor sensor set to a floor temperature. Where the covering manufacturer publishes a maximum surface temperature, that limit governs and the thermostat is set under it.

Why electric

Nothing added to the mechanical room

Electric can eliminate boilers, pumps, glycol and other mechanical components. Depending on the application that can mean less equipment, simpler installation and lower project cost, and fewer maintenance requirements.

Nothing to service

01

No boiler, no pump, no manifold, no fluid. There is no annual service call on a cable under a floor, and nothing to bleed or refill.

Room by room

02

Each area runs off its own thermostat and only draws power when that room calls for heat, rather than driving one loop for the whole building.

Settled on a drawing

03

Product, layout, spacing, output and system requirements are engineered for the job before anything is ordered, and the drawing comes back with the quote.

FAQ

Engineered floors, single rooms, and running cost

Five answers specific to heated interior floors. The general questions are on the homepage FAQ.

Not here? Send us the job or call 780-953-9297.

How is this different from in-slab heating?

Scale and where the heat sits. Interior floor systems warm the floor of a room, in the build-up under the covering, run from a thermostat in that room. Electric in-slab heating puts the cable inside the concrete the building stands on, so the slab becomes the emitter and can carry the heating load for the whole space. Same technology, different job, and the choice is usually made by what stage the construction is at.

Can it go under an engineered or laminate floor?

Commonly, but the manufacturer of the floor covering sets a maximum surface temperature and that limit governs the design. Tile and stone conduct best and are the usual finish. Send us the covering you have chosen along with the room.

Does it heat the room, or only the floor?

For most rooms it is comfort heating and something else carries the load. Whether a floor system can be the heat source for a given room is a heat-loss calculation rather than a preference, and that calculation is part of the quote.

Can I do one room now and another later?

Yes. Each area has its own thermostat and its own circuit, so the rooms are independent. The economical moment for any one room is while its covering is up.

What does it cost to run?

It runs through the heating season rather than per event, so the figure is part of a heating bill. The running cost panel on the homepage is built for the snow-melting case and does not answer this one.