Skirting Board Heating Cost Guide

Skirting board heating is a new and innovative way of heating your home where heaters are placed behind your skirting board. The market leading brand is ThermaSkirt, rising in popularity after the owner appeared on Dragon's Den. There are lots of benefits to skirting board heating – but how much does it cost?

How much does it cost to install skirting board heating?

How much it costs to install ThermaSkirt or skirting board heating will depend on your location, the size of your home or rooms that you want the heating installed in as well as the type of system you want, but here are the average costs:

Item	Average cost
Skirting board heating	£40-£60 per metre
Plumber	£300 per day
Electrician	£225 per day

Check further down the page for plumber and electrician rates in your area – HaMuch has a large database of rates for tradespeople across the country, so you can use these to get a more accurate cost of labour.

What is skirting board heating?

Skirting board heating is a radiant heating system that's designed to look like the normal skirting boards around your home. It provides heat in a similar way to underfloor heating, but it's much easier to retrofit since you won't need to take up your flooring.

Skirting board heaters heat up quickly like radiators do, but they're better at distributing heat evenly around a room.

Types of skirting board heating

There are two types of skirting board heating systems: wet and dry, or water and electric.

Wet skirting board heating

Wet skirting board heating uses your home's central heating system, so it's ideal if you have a boiler. The skirting board heating coils are connected to a feed and return pipe, so water from your boiler supplies the coils with hot water to heat up your room.

Wet skirting board heating also works with heat pumps, so you can use renewable energy to heat your home. ThermaSkirt’s wet heating system is called ThermaSkirt H2O.

Dry skirting board heating

Dry skirting board heating uses electric coils similar to those in electric underfloor heating. The coils are connected to an electric thermostat so you can control the room temperature.

Electric skirting board heating is perfect for smaller, well-insulated homes that aren’t connected to the mains gas network. If you have solar panels, even better – you can use them to power your electric skirting board heating and reduce your impact on the environment. ThermaSkirt’s dry heating system is called ThermaSkirt E.

What are the benefits of ThermaSkirt skirting board heating?

There are plenty of benefits of skirting board heating, making it a popular new heating solution for modern homes:

Easy to retrofit

One of the downsides to underfloor heating is that you need to remove your flooring and create a lot of mess to install it. With skirting board heating, you simply replace your baseboards with these heated ones.

Frees up space in your home

Since you won’t need radiators, you’ll free up more space in your home. If you choose the electric skirting board heating system, you won’t even need heating pipework.

Low maintenance

Your skirting board heating doesn’t need regular servicing, although remember that you should get your gas boiler serviced if you’re running a wet system.

ThermaSkirt heating is also much easier to keep clean – simply wipe like you would with normal skirting boards. They won’t collect dust like regular radiators do.

Distributes heat evenly

Skirting board heating distributes heat evenly around the room, unlike traditional radiators. You’ll also find that you feel warmer at lower operating temperatures compared to radiators, so you could save money on your energy bills.

Disadvantages of skirting board heating

The advantages of skirting board heating outweigh the disadvantages, but there are a few considerations to bear in mind before you go ahead and install it in your home:

Operates at a lower temperature

Like underfloor heating, skirting board heating operates at an efficient, lower temperature than radiators. This can take a bit of getting used to – while a room will still feel warm, you won't feel the extreme heat that you feel from standing next to a radiator on full power.

May not be suitable for large rooms

If you have very large rooms, skirting board heating might not be able to heat them to a comfortable level. Speak to an installer about the rooms in your home that are suitable for ThermaSkirt heating – they will be able to advise where the heating will be most efficient.

Best-suited to insulated homes

If you have a very old home with poor insulation, skirting board heating might not be the best option for you. If you have draughts around windows and doors, too much heat might escape, reducing the system's efficiency.

How much does a skirting board heater cost to run?

How much a skirting board heater costs to run will depend if it's a wet or a dry system. For dry (or electric) systems, they use around 3 kilowatts (kW) per hour.

As of April 2023, electricity is an average of 34p/kWh. That means to run your ThermaSkirt E heating for an hour, it would cost £1.02.

If you have solar panels, it's well worth using them to run your skirting board heating as this will significantly reduce your electricity bill.

If you have a wet (or water) skirting board heating system like the ThermaSkirt H2O, at current gas prices it would cost just over 30p to have your heating on for an hour.

How efficient is ThermaSkirt?

ThermaSkirt heating is very efficient. It is made from aluminium alloy that is highly conductive, and ThermaSkirt claims that it radiates heat up to five times more effectively than steel, which is what radiators are usually made from.

If you're ready to install skirting board heating, make sure you get quotes from a range of installers to ensure you get the best price, whether you choose ThermaSkirt or another brand. Post your job on HaMuch for a plumber or an electrician, depending on the system you need.

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