The performance limitations and high running costs of conventional forced air home heating options, not to mention the safety and environmental impacts, have resulted in a surge of popularity for hydronic wall heating in Australian homes.
If you’re looking for a stylish, healthy and environmentally friendly way to heat your home, hydronic wall heating will not disappoint. In this article, we’ll cover:
- What is a hydronic wall heater?
- Can electricity be used for hydronic wall heating?
- Hydronic wall heating options
- Benefits of wall heating
- Where can wall heating be installed?
- Wall heating products
What is a hydronic wall heater?
Often referred to as a radiator, a hydronic wall heater operates via an energy efficient heat source, where water is heated and circulated through sealed pipes to the unit. The warmed unit then provides what is known as ‘radiant heat’, which warms people and objects throughout the room, eliminating cold draughts and keeping the heat warming you, not the air. The warmth created by hydronic wall heaters is steady and comfortable, neither dry or overbearing and deemed one of the most hygienic, safe and energy efficient ways of heating your home.
Can electricity be used for hydronic wall heating?
In short, yes.
Hydronic wall heating requires a heat source to warm the water to a thermostat-controlled temperature. If you live in an urban area, the cheapest fuel to use is natural gas. If this isn’t available, LPG, Electric or solid fuel heat source boiler can be used, along with solar input.
Hydronic wall heating options
Let’s take a quick look at a few system options for your wall heating. These products can also be used for domestic hot water.
1. Hydronic heating condensing gas boiler
Highly energy efficient with lower running costs than an electric boiler or traditional gas heating.
2. Hydronic heat source (air to water)
Great for homes with no access to natural gas, they are extremely energy efficient and have low running costs but can be noisy to operate.
3. Hydronic electric heat source
Pricey to run, but very efficient and affordable to install, this option is small and reasonably quiet so you can have it inside the home.
The verdict: if you can access mains gas, it is a better move to use an efficient condensing gas boiler to operate your wall heating than electric boiler to save yourself money, increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
Benefits of wall heating – at a glance
- Lower running costs: a gas hydronic wall heater costs about 20 to 30 percent less to run than a conventional ducted gas heating set up.
- Space saving: not taking up floor space, which is important if you’re living in small unit where you need to maximise your square metres
- Design flexibility: many sizes, styles and options to colour match your interior decorating and colour scheme, plus new heating panels can be added onto the existing system at a later date
- Whisper quiet: no distractions with virtually silent systems
- Safety first: low surface temperature options & no electrical connections
- Ease: straight forward installation + maintenance
- Health: improve air quality by reducing circulation of allergens, dust and pollens being blown about the home
- Environmentally friendly: maximum energy efficiency – reduce your carbon footprint
- Room-by-room control: flexibility to decide which areas of the home you want heated using thermostat control.
Where can wall heating be installed?
The position of the wall heating unit affects how efficiently it will operate. Ideally you want to install it in the coldest part of the room. Back in the day when homes weren’t as well insulated, this spot used to be directly under the windows as the radiator heat would counteract cold air leaking through the window frame. If you don’t have double glazed windows, this still may be the case and therefore be the right location to install.
Generally speaking, you want to put your wall heaters where they won’t impact the use of walls for furniture placement and aren’t in awkward spots, like behind doors. In especially cold areas, you also want to avoid placing your wall heater on an exterior wall as it might reduce its efficiency, because it has to work harder due to the colder temperature on the other side of the same wall. Use interior walls where possible.
One of the many beauties of wall heating is the flexibility of the areas it can be installed throughout the home:
- Main living areas
- Bedrooms
- Hallways
- Kitchens
- bathrooms
Wall heating products
Hunt Heating offer a wide range of modern wall heating solutions in a variety of sizes, designs and configurations for all areas of your home. Not only high performance, superb finish and design and great reliability are all integral to their products. They offer energy efficient heating and style to any room, with many options having the flexibility to be painted to colour match your décor.
Let’s take a look at some popular options from our current selection:
Designer radiators
Hunt also boast an impressive collection of designer wall heaters from a number of high-quality European manufacturers.
- Halo
- Saturn and Moon – perfect for bathrooms
- Zero Otto – with built in essence holder to emit a fragrance into the room
- Bells Beach
View the full designer radiator collection
Heated towel rails
Add a touch of luxury to your bathroom by installing heated towel rails. Using the same system as the radiator, heated towel rails keep towels and floor mats dry and generally prevent germs and mould from growing, while also warming the bathroom air.
A few favourites from the range offered at Hunt Heating:
Want to see more? Take a peek at Hunt Heating’s full range of heated towel rails.
Hunt Heating specialise in bringing European quality and innovation to Australian homes and are committed to delivering sustainable, low-carbon systems that can be enjoyed year in, year out. We modify our products and systems to suit the unique climate challenges of your location and the conditions of your home or building.
Contact our friendly team of home hydronic heating experts to find out about our premium wall heating solutions for your home.
