Building in the Next Year or Two? The Heating Decisions You Have to Lock In – and Exactly When.
The slab went down in the third week of October, on schedule, and everyone was pleased. The heating was on the list for later – first fix, probably, once the walls were up. Nobody did anything wrong that week; the decisions that mattered had simply closed, quietly, with the concrete still wet.
Your heating bill is decided before the concrete is poured. Not by the brand of the heat pump or the thermostat on the wall – by a handful of decisions that each have a closing window, and the earliest ones close first. Miss one, and no amount of good equipment later buys it back, because the mistake is set in the slab.
If your build is still a year or two away, nothing below is urgent yet – which is exactly why this is the cheapest possible moment to get every one of these right. Here is the whole schedule, on one page.
Before the plans are final
- Decide floor heating vs radiators – while the answer can still shape the slab, not fight it.
- Get the running-cost gap for your home size. The same 200 m² house models at about $240 a month built right and about $601 built the common cheap way (modelled estimate). Two minutes on the Running Cost Calculator shows your size.
- Confirm how the floor will be heated – pipes in an insulated screed laid on top of the slab, or in the slab itself – and, for a screed, set the slab down about 75–80 mm so the finished floor ends up level. This single line on the drawings is where that gap is won or lost.
The point of no return
- Thermal breaks at the slab edge – decided and confirmed in engineering, not left to site habit.
- Insulation under and beside the slab – specified in the contract, in writing.
- Heat pump location designed in – before the walls exist, so the machine can breathe instead of being boxed in later.
While the walls are open
- Pipe layout to the specification – laid to the calculated design, not to fill the floor.
- Manifold location – accessible for balancing and service, decided before the cabinetry is.
- Controls wiring – in the walls before they close.
Before you move in
- Commissioning – the system proven against its design figures, not just switched on.
- Balancing – loop by loop, so every room gets its share of the warmth.
- Controls tuned to the slab's heat-up time – measured, not guessed, so the house is warm when you wake, not at lunchtime.
Pin it above your desk.
Everything on this page fits on one printed sheet. Enter your email and we'll send you the one-page PDF – print it, pin it next to your build calendar, and tick the stages off as your project reaches them.
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Building later doesn't mean deciding later.
You can't book a build date years out, and neither can we – input costs move. What you can lock in early is certainty and your place in the queue. That's what the Comfort Guarantee Roadmap does.
The Roadmap is the engineering that locks in stages 1 and 2 for your specific home – slab decision, thermal breaks, heat pump siting, your modelled running cost in writing. $1,450, credited 100% to your build, and it doesn't expire with your timeline: design now, build when you're ready.
Get the Comfort Guarantee Roadmap →