New to hydronic heating
New to underfloor heating
WE CAN HELP.
Our Customer Education visit is for owners who are new to hydronic heating: we go through the system you have, balance it so every room gets its share, set the controls up, and show you how to run it.
The customer education visit
What we do on a first visit
Two to three hours, depending on the size of the house. Half of it is checking the system, half of it is teaching you. You do not need to know anything beforehand.
Work out what you have
What is heating the water — heat pump, gas boiler or electric element — how many zones, which loop serves which room, and what condition the manifold, pump and valves are in.
Balance the system
Set the flow on every loop so the far end of the house heats as well as the near end.
Set the controls properly
Thermostats, schedules and zone assignments — often still on a previous owner’s settings, sometimes wired to the wrong rooms. We set them for how you actually live, and we check flow temperatures are right for a slab rather than left at a factory default.
Teach you to run it
We show you how to run your system efficiently and effectively.
The short version
Four things worth knowing on day one
It heats slowly
You are heating a concrete slab, not the air. Hours to warm, hours to cool. Set it and leave it running steadily — do not treat it like a wall heat pump you switch on when you get home.
Do not turn it off
Use a setback of a couple of degrees overnight or while you are out. A slab allowed to go properly cold takes most of a day to recover, and costs more to bring back than the setback saved.
Set the room, not the floor
Dial in the room temperature you want — usually 20–22°C in living areas, cooler in bedrooms. The floor will find its own level, somewhere around 22–26°C.
THERMOSTAT CONTROLS
Heatmiser neoStat
The programmable room thermostat we fit most often, in black or white. Works standalone, or talks to a neoHub so you can run the house from your phone.
- Programmable by day, with a setback rather than off
- Floor sensor option so the slab never overshoots
- Holiday mode for when you are away
- Quick-start guide provided in black or white to match yours
Siemens RDE100.1
A simple, reliable programmable thermostat fitted on a great many Auckland hydronic systems. We still service them, still stock them, and still replace them like for like when one fails.
- Straightforward 7-day programming
- No app, no hub, nothing to update
- Direct replacements available, so a failure is not a system upgrade
- Quick-start guide provided
Questions
What new owners ask us
I have just moved in and there is a cupboard full of pipes. What am I looking at?
That is the manifold. Two horizontal bars, one for flow and one for return, with a row of small valves connecting them to the loops buried in your floor. Each loop serves a room or part of a room. There will also be a circulation pump, and somewhere nearby either a heat pump outside, a gas boiler on the wall, or an electric boiler panel. None of it is dangerous and none of it needs touching day to day.
Why does it take so long to warm up?
Because you are heating a concrete slab, not the air. The slab holds a lot of heat and takes hours to come up and hours to cool down, which keeps the temperature even. Set it and leave it running steadily, rather than switching it on when you get home as you would a wall heat pump.
What temperature should I set it to?
Set the room temperature you want, not the floor temperature. For most people that is 20–22°C in living areas and cooler in bedrooms. The floor surface will sit somewhere around 22–26°C to achieve that. If you find yourself winding it up to 26°C to feel warm, something is wrong with the system or the house and it is worth a visit.
Should I turn it off when I go out?
Not off, no. A slab that has been allowed to go cold takes most of a day to recover, and the energy to bring it back is more than you saved. Use a setback instead — a couple of degrees lower overnight or while the house is empty. Off is for when you go away for a fortnight.
There is a room that never gets warm.
Usually one of three things: that loop is not getting flow because a valve or actuator has stuck, the system has never been balanced so the nearer loops are taking everything, or there is air in that circuit. All three are ordinary service work at the manifold, and none of them involve the concrete.
The thermostats look complicated and there is no manual.
This is common. We can identify what you have — Heatmiser neoStat, Siemens RDE, or one of a dozen others — set it up and leave you a one-page quick-start for that exact model.
How do I know whether it has been serviced?
Often you cannot, because the paperwork rarely survives a house sale. If there is no record, assume it has not been. A first service on a system we have not seen before includes a full check of what you have actually inherited, and we write it down so that next time there is a record.
Is my system gas, electric or a heat pump?
Look for what is heating the water. A box on the outside wall with a fan in it is a heat pump. A white unit on an inside wall with a flue going outside is a gas boiler. A slim cabinet in a cupboard with no flue is usually an electric boiler — often a Laing panel, which is worth knowing about because it costs roughly four times what a heat pump does to run. Send us a photo and we will tell you.
What does the education visit cost?
It is charged as an ordinary service visit — we tell you the rate before we come. Most people book it together with a first service, as half the visit is checking that the system is working.
Can you do this for a rental or a property manager?
Yes. A tenant who understands the system is more likely to run it correctly. We can leave the quick-start guides in the property.