Radiant Floor Heating Cost in North Vancouver: 2026 Prices by Room

Two different products share one name

Electric radiant heat is a thin mat or a set of cables laid under the finished floor, wired to a thermostat, that warms the floor directly with electric resistance heat, the same principle as a toaster element, just spread thin and low-wattage across a floor area. It heats up fast, in 30 to 60 minutes, and it's sized per room rather than per house.

Hydronic radiant heat runs loops of PEX tubing under or in the floor, carrying hot water from a boiler or a heat pump's hot water loop. It takes longer to warm a room, often 2 to 4 hours from cold, because it's heating the water, the tubing, and the floor mass before the room feels it. In exchange, it's efficient to run continuously and it can serve as the primary heat source for an entire floor or house rather than a supplemental comfort feature in one room.

The rule of thumb we use with clients: electric for a single room where the floor is already tiled or being tiled and the house has central heat elsewhere. Hydronic for a whole floor, an addition, or a full renovation where you're deciding on a primary heat source from scratch.

What it costs, by room and by system

These are 2026 installed price ranges for North Vancouver renovation work, covering the mat or tubing, the thermostat and controls, and installation labour. They assume the subfloor is otherwise being renovated anyway, since retrofitting radiant heat into a floor that isn't being touched adds demolition cost on top.

Hydronic and electric aren't priced the same way for a reason

Electric radiant heat's cost scales almost entirely with square footage: more mat, more labour to lay it, roughly the same cost per square foot regardless of room. A 2026 electric mat installation runs $15 to $28 per square foot installed on a typical North Vancouver bathroom or kitchen retrofit, tile finish included in that if it's part of the same scope.

Hydronic pricing is different because most of the cost sits in the heat source and the distribution, not the tubing itself. The PEX tubing is inexpensive per foot. What costs money is the manifold that splits the loop into zones, the pump, the controls, and critically, whatever is generating the hot water. If a house already has a boiler with spare capacity, adding a hydronic zone might run at the low end of our range. If the project needs a new boiler or a heat pump sized to supply both space heating and the radiant loop, that heat source cost can be half the total project.

This is why a hydronic quote should always specify whether the heat source is included. A number like $10,000 for basement radiant heat means something very different depending on whether it assumes an existing boiler with room to spare or a new one has to go in.

Pairing radiant heat with a heat pump retrofit

Modern cold-climate heat pumps can supply low-temperature hot water suited to hydronic radiant floors, and that pairing has become one of the more common requests we get on North Shore whole-floor renovations. Radiant floors run at lower water temperatures than a traditional baseboard system, typically 35 to 45 degrees Celsius versus 60 to 70 for baseboards, and a heat pump is most efficient exactly in that lower temperature range. The two technologies suit each other well.

The practical sequencing question is whether the heat pump is being sized for the radiant zone alone or for the whole house's heating and cooling load. A heat pump sized only for one zone's radiant floor is a smaller, cheaper unit, but it leaves the rest of the house on its existing system. Sizing the heat pump for the whole house and running radiant as one of its zones costs more up front but replaces the whole heating system in one project instead of two separate ones down the line.

If a heat pump retrofit is already planned or likely within the next five years, it's worth sizing and roughing in the radiant zone during the current renovation, even if the heat pump itself comes later. Retrofitting PEX tubing into a finished floor a second time means tearing up flooring that was just installed.

What drives the range on a real project

Floor height is the constraint that surprises people most. Hydronic tubing needs a minimum floor buildup, typically 1 to 2 inches depending on the system (thin, low-profile hydronic panels exist but cost more per square foot), and on a renovation where the existing floor-to-ceiling height or door clearances are tight, that buildup can force a decision between radiant heat and keeping doors swinging clear without trimming them.

Subfloor type matters too. Radiant heat performs best under tile, stone, or engineered hardwood rated for radiant use. Solid hardwood and radiant heat can coexist but need a product specifically rated for it and a tighter humidity and temperature control range, since solid wood expands and contracts more with heat cycling than engineered wood does. Carpet works over hydronic but insulates the room from the heat, reducing output, so it's rarely paired with radiant intentionally.

And a basement slab-on-grade application is usually the best value in the whole category, because the concrete slab itself becomes the heat-storing mass for the hydronic loop, and there's no existing subfloor to demolish. This is why basement renovations are where we install the most hydronic radiant heat on the North Shore.