Company rolls out Wi-Fi enabled floor-heating thermostat
A Richmond company that makes customized electric floor heating mats has developed North America’s first Wi-Fi enabled floor-heating thermostat.
Nuheat Industries Ltd.’s new line of thermostats includes the Nuheat Signature. It has a touchscreen and energy-use monitor and can be programmed for seven days. At a touch of a button, homeowners can also check the day’s weather forecast. The programmable thermostat can be controlled using a mobile smart phone app (iOS and Android) or web browser.
The line of thermostats was developed with OJ Electronics in Denmark.
They were designed to be as simple as possible to accommodate the 80 per cent of homeowners who don’t program their thermostats because they’re too difficult, said Wally Lo, Nuheat’s product manager.
“I feel very confident that this is the easiest thermostat to program in electric floor heating,” Lo said.
The Nuheat Signature is the top model and retails for $265. The entry level is the Element, at $110, which is not programmable; the mid-range model is the Home, at $195, which is programmable but not Wi-Fi enabled.
Since it was founded in 1989, Nuheat has been steadily building its reputation as a leading manufacturer of electric floor- heating systems. During that time, it has grown from three employees to about 120.
It’s also known as one of the country’s best managed companies. It was recently recognized by its peers in business as one of the 50 Best Managed Companies in Canada for the 10th year in a row among private companies with revenue of more than $10 million.
Nuheat is located in southeast Richmond in a building overlooking Annacis Channel on the Fraser River. One of it’s strengths is its ability to manufacture customized electric floorheating mats — and make them fast.
Customized mats can be made and sent to a contractor or homeowner within as few as three days.
“If you have an L-shaped room or a room with an island in the middle or a triangular floor, the homeowner or contractor will send us the dimensions of the room and a custom mat gets manufactured,” Lo said.
What makes such a fast turnaround time possible is a machine called the Vector 2.
It’s a computer-programmed piece of industrial machinery that lays out heating wires in perfectly aligned, continuous strands on sheets of polyester blend fabric. As it moves over the fabric, the robotic arm creates a customized mat with wires between five and 10 cm (two to four inches) apart depending on the project.
Once the wires are laid in place on the polyester fabric, another layer of polyester is laid on top and the two pieces are heatpressed into one. The finished product is a thin, grey mat, about three mm (1/8th) of an inch thick. The mats produce 41 BTUs/square foot, which is considered enough to heat most rooms in a house.
Nuheat can make a customized mat up to 18.5 sq m (200 square feet) in size. The company also makes standard square and rectangular sized mats in more than 60 different sizes.
A mat is installed in the subfloor between the first and second layer of thinset mortar. Nuheat mats are used under stone and laminate/engineered wood floors.
Laying out the heating wires precisely is important, Lo said. If they’re not evenly spaced and consistent, they can lead to unpleasant cold and hot spots.
“The only thing worse than a cold tile is a cold tile next to a hot tile,” he said.
“If you have a cold spot and hot spot, that difference is much more noticeable than if the entire tile wasn’t heated. That’s why even spacing and even consistent heat is so important when it comes to electric floor heating.”
The average cost of Nuheat mats is $12 to $15 a square foot.
Nuheat has a reputation for producing high-quality products. A sign of that is the contract Nuheat landed to heat more than 200 bathrooms at 432 Park Avenue in New York City. The luxury residential tower is 96 storeys high (425 m/1,396 feet). Units start at $7 million; the penthouse went for $95 million. Once finished, it will be the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere.
In addition to Nuheat mats going into high-end bathrooms, developers are now putting them in more middle-class condominium units priced between $200,000 and $400,000, said Bill Condon, Nuheat’s business development manager.
“It’s becoming an affordable amenity,” Condon said.
When one developer puts Nuheat mats in all the bathrooms in one project, the next developer ups the ante by putting floor heating mats not only in the bathrooms but in other areas as well, such as kitchens. The majority of Nuheat installations are in bathrooms but they’re increasingly being installed in kitchens, hallways and living rooms.
Other Nuheat products are being used outdoors to melt snow and ice on sidewalks and driveways and on roofs and gutters. The company has also developed a line of what it calls heat tracers for water pipes to keep them from freezing.