You can easily retrofit smart underfloor heating as part of a renovation. We'll show you how it's done.

Underfloor heating is now standard in new builds – and for good reason: on the one hand, water-based underfloor heating works more efficiently than radiators; the homeowner saves money when heating. On the other hand, doing without visible radiators enhances the aesthetics of the room. The warmth close to the ground is also appreciated by parents of babies and toddlers who spend a lot of time sitting and crawling on the floor. And even the grown-ups are happy about their warm feet in any bad weather; thick slippers are no longer necessary.

In existing buildings, the laying of water-based underfloor heating is only possible as part of comprehensive modernization projects that devour vast amounts of money. However, there is a smart alternative: If you want to renovate a single room (e.g. just the bathroom, kitchen or study), you can install electric underfloor heating and combine it with smart home technology.

Electric underfloor heating

For electric underfloor heating, you remove the old floor covering. Then you lay the required components - heating cables, heating mats or heating foils - on the existing screed and then lay the new floor covering. If you equip the room with new tiles, the elements are laid directly in the tile adhesive. A vinyl floor, on the other hand, is laid freely floating above the heating elements. Since the elements are only approx. 2-5 millimeters thick, they do not raise the floor level - this makes laying particularly easy. You can even install the electric underfloor heating under floor-level shower areas. In this way, the floor in the wet area dries particularly quickly.

The heating is controlled via temperature sensors on the floor. For this purpose, the cable of the underfloor heating mat is connected to the electronic room thermostat. With a smart home heating system, the underfloor heating can also be controlled via a smartphone app.

Planning: Electric underfloor heating for the bathroom

You can use either heating mats or heating foils to set up electric underfloor heating – it depends on which floor covering is to be used in your new bathroom. Heating mats are the better choice for rooms with tiles, as they can be filled in with tile adhesive or screed. Heating foil, on the other hand, is used for floating floor coverings (vinyl, parquet).

First of all, you should determine the material requirements for the electric underfloor heating in your new bathroom - shown here using heating mats as an example:

Step 1: Determine material requirements: How much heating mat do I need?

Make a true-to-scale sketch of the room you want to equip with electric underfloor heating. For this you measure the space with a ruler and create a sketch. In the sketch you draw all permanently installed objects such as bathtubs, sinks or toilets as well as large pieces of furniture. In the next step, add up the area of ​​the permanently installed objects and subtract them from the total area of ​​the bathroom. This gives you the number of square meters of material required. In our shop you can get the heating mats in denominations of 2 m², 4 m², 6 m², 8 m² and 10 m².

How do you adapt the heating mats to the shape and size of your new bathroom when laying them? Quite simply: Our heating mats are 50 cm wide. Depending on the required length, you lay a length of the heating mat and then cut it so that you can "fold" it over and put it back on the free area.

Tip from the pro

If more than 50% of the total area of ​​the bathroom is covered with solid objects, underfloor heating makes little sense. The heating output is then too low. In this case, we recommend that you switch to a conventional or electric bathroom radiator, which provides cozy warmth.

Step 2: Select thermostat

Would you like to make underfloor heating smart? Then you need a SmartHome-enabled thermostat. We recommend our essentials heating mat and smart wall thermostat set. It can be integrated into the home WLAN with just a few clicks and can be operated immediately using the free app. In the app you can optimize the power consumption of the electric underfloor heating, e.g. B. by storing your individual weekly program with a maximum of four heating switching times per day. Would you like to get into a warm bath at 6.30 in the morning? Do you want the bathroom heating to start up again at 6 p.m. at the end of the day? Everything is possible! The essentials wall thermostat also works with Tuya Smart, Amazon Alexa and Google Home. A floor sensor is also included with this set.

Of course, the elegantly designed smart home wall thermostat also allows you to control the heating temperature by pressing a button - so you don't necessarily have to install the app. In manual mode, the wall thermostat constantly controls the temperature to the set setpoint temperature, regardless of the time. You can read the actual and target temperature on the display of the thermostat. In automatic mode, on the other hand, the system regulates the temperature using a time-controlled heating profile, which you can store either by pressing a button on the thermostat or via the app

Tip

Please check how many thermostats you need for your bathroom - this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and depends on the possible total switching capacity of the respective thermostat or the number of heating mats used (and thus the size of the room). For example, you can connect a 20 m² heating mat to our essentials wall thermostat, whereby a total switching capacity of 13 A must not be exceeded.

Step 3: Plan the location of the thermostat

Plan the installation of the thermostat as follows:
* exclusively on interior walls
* with a minimum distance of 50 cm from windows and doors
* at a height of 140 cm to 160 cm
Now draw the planned position of the thermostat (or the thermostats if you need several) in your sketch. Please note that the installation of a wall thermostat may only be carried out by qualified electricians.

Step 4: Plan the location of the floor sensor and power cord

The floor sensor should run between two heating cables and protrude at least 50 cm into the room. When planning the power cord, consider the existing power connections. It is important that the floor sensor of the wall thermostat is not simply laid in the tile adhesive or screed, but is laid with a conduit. The teaching tube is a hose with a diameter of approx. 1 cm. You lay this in the tile adhesive/screed. Then you lead the cable of the floor sensor through. The advantage: If the wall thermostat is defective, it can be easily replaced.

Draw the planned position of the floor sensor and power cable in your sketch

Getting started

After this careful planning, you can get to work and lay the smart underfloor heating. We wish you a lot of fun with the craftsmen!