Your Gas Heater's Days Are Numbered - Here's Why Australians Are Rushing to Heated Floors Instead

The gas ban is real, the bills are rising, and a quiet revolution is warming homes from the ground up. This is what's actually happening on the ground.

Let me paint you a picture.
It's a Tuesday morning in June. Melbourne. Six degrees outside. You drag yourself out of bed, shuffle to the bathroom, and - as you do every single winter morning - brace for the cold tile shock the moment your feet hit the floor.
Now imagine that never happens again.
That's not a sales pitch. That's what thousands of Australian homeowners are discovering right now as they make a switch they probably should have made years ago: ditching their ageing ducted gas heater and moving to a radiant floor heating system with proper thermostat heating controls they can actually trust.
The timing, as it turns out, couldn't be more relevant.

The Gas Era Is Ending - Ready or Not
Here's something a lot of homeowners haven't fully absorbed yet: Australia is actively phasing out residential gas.
Victoria banned new gas connections for most new homes from January 1, 2024. The ACT moved in a similar direction. New South Wales and Queensland are watching the same playbook. From January 2027, new Victorian homes must be all-electric - no exceptions. Other states are following the same trajectory.
This isn't distant policy. It's already reshaping renovation decisions across the country.
What it means practically is that if your ducted gas heater is ageing - and most are, given average system lifespans of 15 to 20 years - replacing it with another gas system is becoming an increasingly short-sighted choice. You'd be investing thousands of dollars in infrastructure that your state government has effectively put a use-by date on.
The smarter conversation, the one more and more Australian homeowners are having right now, is: what do I replace it with?

Why Radiant Floor Heating Is Winning That Conversation
The answer, for a growing number of people, is underfloor heating - specifically electric radiant heat systems paired with smart thermostat controllers.
And the reason isn't just politics or policy. It's physics.

Ducted gas heating works by warming air. That warm air rises - immediately - toward your ceiling, while your feet stay cold and your thermostat keeps cycling. You heat the room from the top down, which is the opposite of how human comfort actually works. Our bodies feel warmest when our feet and lower body are warm. Our heads can handle the cool air.
A radiant floor heating system flips that entirely. The heated floorboards, heated tiles, or mats beneath engineered timber warm the surface you actually stand on. Heat radiates upward, evenly, across the whole room. No cold spots. No hot ceiling. No air being pushed through dusty ducts.
The result is a room that feels warmer at a lower thermostat setting - which means less energy used, and lower bills.

The Smart Thermostat Difference Nobody Talks About Enough
Here's where a lot of homeowners get surprised.
They assume an underfloor heating system is "set and forget" - and with the right heating thermostat, it genuinely is. But the key word there is right.
A quality thermostat controller for your radiant heat system should know your schedule before you do. It should warm your bathroom floor at 6:15 AM so that by 6:30, when you step out of bed, the heated tiles are already at 28°C. It should be adjustable from your phone when you're running late. And when something's off, it should tell you - not make you guess.
Modern smart thermostats for underfloor heating systems do exactly this. They learn. They adapt. And for homeowners who've spent years fighting with basic heating controls or unreliable programmers, the experience of using a genuinely responsive heating thermostat is - frankly - a bit emotional.
We've heard this from client after client. The moment they realise their floor heating system is simply working, quietly, invisibly, exactly as promised, every single morning, something relaxes in them.
That's not a small thing.

"I Wish We'd Done This Five Years Ago"
That line - or some version of it - comes up in conversation with new Warmup clients more often than almost anything else.
Recently, a family in Adelaide who'd replaced an ageing ducted gas system with Warmup electric underfloor heating in their main bathroom and kitchen described the shift this way: the old system was loud, inconsistent, and had started costing them more every winter as gas tariffs climbed. The new underfloor heating system runs on electricity - which their rooftop solar partially covers - and their thermostat controller shows them exactly what it's spending, in real time.
"We went from dreading the winter energy bill," they said, "to actually looking forward to winter."
That's the kind of sentence that makes working in this industry feel worthwhile.

Is Electric Underfloor Heating Actually Affordable to Run?
This is the question that stops most people mid-sentence when they're considering the switch. And it's a fair one.
The honest answer: it depends on the room, the system, and how you use it.
For a standard Australian bathroom - around 4 to 6 square metres - an electric floor warming system beneath heated tiles costs roughly two to five cents per square metre per hour to run. Run it for two hours in the morning and one hour in the evening across a full winter season, and you're looking at a surprisingly modest figure. Many homeowners find it costs less than they were spending on a single portable electric heater - which they're now getting rid of.
For whole-home radiant floor heating in larger properties, hydronic systems paired with a heat pump are the more cost-effective choice at scale. But for room-by-room comfort - bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, under-rug heating in living spaces - electric systems are the clear, practical winner.
And with rooftop solar now in roughly one in three Australian homes, the ability to run your heating thermostat during peak solar generation hours makes the running cost conversation even more compelling.

What to Look for When You Make the Switch
If you're weighing up replacing your ducted gas heating with an underfloor heating system, here are the questions worth asking before you commit:
Warranty: A quality electric underfloor heating system should come with meaningful warranty coverage - not a vague 12-month policy, but multi-year protection on the heating elements themselves. Warmup, for example, backs its cables and mats with 25-year warranty coverage. That's the kind of confidence that only comes from a system built to last.
Thermostat intelligence: Don't settle for a basic timer. A programmable, Wi-Fi enabled thermostat controller that you can manage via app, that shows energy usage in real time, and that can be scheduled room by room - that's the standard worth insisting on.
Floor compatibility: Whether you're laying heated tiles, installing under engineered timber, or exploring under-rug heating for a living area - confirm your system is rated for your specific flooring type. The wrong pairing can affect both performance and warranty.
Installation: For electric systems, a licensed electrician completes the connection. The rest of the installation is often far simpler than people expect - particularly for thin mat systems that sit directly within the tile adhesive layer.

The Bigger Picture
Australia's shift away from gas isn't just a policy story. It's a lifestyle story.
Homeowners who've made the switch to radiant floor heating consistently describe a change that goes beyond degrees Celsius. It's quieter homes. Cleaner air. No allergens being pushed through ducts. No reliance on a gas supply that gets more expensive and more politically complicated every year.
And for those who've paired a radiant heat system with smart heating controls and rooftop solar? The sense of having genuinely future-proofed their home is real and palpable.
The cold tile shock of a Melbourne winter morning is optional. It always was. Australians are just finally realising it - and the underfloor heating industry is doing everything it can to keep up.
We're proud to be part of that.

Warmup Australia provides electric underfloor heating systems, radiant floor heating solutions, and smart thermostat controllers for homes across Australia. To explore what's right for your home, visit warmup.com.au.

2/89 Derby street, Silverwater, NSW, Australia - 2128

Warmup is a globally recognized brand enriching thousands of homes with comfort and cosiness. With a long-standing reputation for excellence, Warmup has become a household name in New Zealand, enriching thousands of homes with warmth and comfort.

Warmup Australia specialises in innovative electric radiant heating systems designed for installation beneath tiles, wood/laminate, carpet, polished concrete and other floor finishes to deliver energy-efficient high comfort heating solutions for residential and commercial buildings in Australia. Warmup thrives on innovation and has constantly invested in upgrading its products with cutting edge technology to keep abreast with customer requirements and comply with building codes.

Warmup remains committed to its legacy of excellence and guarantees quality and year-round comfort for countless more families.

This release was published on openPR.