Heat pump hydronic heating, in-slab underfloor heating and European panel radiators for homes on both sides of the Murray: Albury, Lavington, Thurgoona, Wodonga and the surrounding towns. Every system is designed from a room-by-room heat-loss calculation and installed by our own licensed team from our North Albury showroom.
AHHAC designs and installs hydronic heating in Albury, Wodonga and the surrounding Murray border towns from our North Albury showroom. Winters here are frosty: BOM's Albury Airport station averages a 3.1 °C July minimum and about 17 mornings a year at or below 0 °C. Most homes suit an all-electric heat pump driving underfloor heating or radiators, typically $20,000–$60,000+ installed for a whole home, with a fixed-fee quote within 24 hours of the site visit.
Reviewed by the AHHAC Technical Team — licensed plumbers & hydronic engineers, NSW Lic 262528C.How we write & review
AHHAC designs and installs hydronic heating in Albury, Wodonga and the towns around the Murray border from our North Albury showroom at 845-847 Leslie Drive. We work on both sides of the river: Albury, Lavington and Thurgoona in NSW, Wodonga and Baranduda in Victoria, and out to Corowa, Howlong, Rutherglen, Beechworth and Holbrook. Every job starts with a room-by-room heat-loss calculation, and the fixed-fee design and quote come back within 24 hours of the site visit.
Border winters are colder than they look on a map. The Bureau of Meteorology's Albury Airport station (records from 1993) averages a July minimum of 3.1 °C and a July maximum of only 13.3 °C. It logs around 44 mornings a year at 2 °C or below and about 17 at or below freezing, and one July morning in ten gets down to about −1 °C or colder. Out of town it is colder again: BOM's long-running Rutherglen Research station averages a 2.0 °C July minimum and roughly 41 sub-zero mornings a year. Those frosty, damp mornings, when the house has lost its warmth overnight and everyone is up at once, are the conditions a heating system here has to be designed around.
Hydronic heating suits that pattern because it warms the building rather than just the air. Hot water circulates through underfloor heating pipes in the slab or through hydronic radiators on the walls, so floors, walls and furniture hold heat through a frosty night. There is no fan noise, no dust blown around the house and no cold draught when the system cycles off. For a home that is occupied most of the day, in-slab underfloor running steadily at 35–45 °C is the most comfortable and economical choice. For a home that sits empty during work hours, radiators make more sense: they bring a room up to temperature in 15–25 minutes, while an in-slab floor responds over hours.
Older brick homes and new estates need different systems. Central, East and South Albury and the older streets of Wodonga have a lot of Federation, inter-war and post-war brick homes, many on suspended timber floors. Those homes suit radiators: pipework runs through the subfloor without lifting a board, and steel panel or column radiators from the IMAS range sit under the windows, where most heat is lost. In the new estates around Thurgoona, Lavington's northern edge and Wodonga's growth areas towards Baranduda, most homes are slab-on-ground, which makes in-slab underfloor heating the natural fit, as long as we are involved before the slab is poured. If the slab is already down, an in-screed system laid over it, or radiators, are the alternatives.
Brick construction affects the design in other ways too. Solid double-brick walls hold a lot of heat once they are warm, but they take a long time to come up from cold, which favours steady, low-temperature heating over short bursts. Brick veneer with thin or patchy wall insulation loses heat faster. In both cases we often recommend topping up ceiling insulation, insulating under a timber floor and sealing obvious draughts before we size the plant, because a smaller heat pump on a tighter house costs less to buy and less to run. In Beechworth, Rutherglen and other older towns with stone and brick buildings, ThermaSkirt skirting-board heating is another option: it replaces the skirting and leaves walls, floors and ceilings untouched.
Moving from gas to electric. Many border homes still run ducted gas, gas space heaters or an older gas hydronic boiler, and acreage properties beyond the gas mains often rely on bottled LPG. Our most common recommendation now is an all-electric air-to-water heat pump. A heat pump delivers 3.5 to 5.5 units of heat for each unit of electricity, and running costs are typically 60–75% lower than gas. The Maxa i-290 R290 monoblock comes in sizes from 6 to 27 kW, so we can match the unit to the house rather than oversizing it. If you already have a gas boiler and radiators in good condition, most of the pipework can usually stay, and our guide to replacing a gas hydronic boiler with a heat pump explains what changes.
Hot summers as well. The same Albury Airport station averages more than 20 days a year at 35 °C or above. A reversible heat pump can supply chilled water in summer through hydronic fan coils or the underfloor pipework, so one plant can both heat and cool. Floor cooling takes the edge off a hot day but cannot match a dedicated air conditioner on a 40 °C afternoon, so for full summer cooling we either include fan coils in the main living areas or suggest keeping an existing reverse-cycle unit for the hottest days. We will tell you which approach suits your house before you commit.
Our own licensed team. AHHAC started in Sydney in 1998 as AJ's Plumbing and has installed more than 2,400 hydronic systems. Albury–Wodonga jobs are carried out by our own licensed plumbers and hydronic engineers, not subcontractors, and installed to AS/NZS 3500 for plumbing and AS/NZS 5601 for gas work. Plumbing and gas requirements differ between NSW and Victoria, so we plan each job around the rules for the side of the river your home is on.
Sized for inland conditions. Getting the size right matters more here than on the coast. A system sized for a Sydney winter will leave an Albury living room cold on a July morning, and an oversized one switches on and off constantly and wastes money. We calculate the heat loss room by room from your floor plan, wall and ceiling construction and glazing, then size the heat pump, pipe spacing and radiators to match. The written design sets out the equipment, zones and flow temperatures, so you can compare our quote line by line with any other.
Honest about cost and fit. Whole-home hydronic heating typically costs $20,000–$60,000+ installed, and radiator systems $12,000–$30,000. It pays off in homes that are heated for long hours over a long season, which describes most family homes on the border. It is not the cheapest answer if you heat one room for a couple of hours a night or mainly want cooling. In that case a reverse-cycle split system will cost far less upfront, and our comparison of hydronic heating vs reverse-cycle air conditioning sets out the trade-offs. For the ongoing numbers, see our hydronic heating running costs guide.
Rebates, hot water and the cold-climate approach. STCs apply only to registered heat pump and solar water heaters, not to the air-to-water heat pumps that drive hydronic space heating, and Victorian Energy Upgrades heating incentives cover air-to-air reverse-cycle units rather than hydronic heat pumps. Our heat pump rebates guide has the detail. If you are replacing gas hot water at the same time, a heat pump water heater can sit beside the hydronic plant; see our hot water systems page. Albury–Wodonga winters sit closer to Canberra's than to Sydney's, and we apply the same cold-climate design approach we use for hydronic heating Canberra projects and across hydronic heating Melbourne.
AHHAC's in-house design and service team — licensed plumbers and hydronic engineers (Lic 262528C) who have designed and installed 2,400+ hydronic heating, cooling and hot water systems across Australia since 1998.
Every Albury system is designed from a room-by-room heat-loss calculation and installed by our own licensed plumbers and hydronic engineers to AS/NZS standards — never subcontracted out. We hold NSW plumbing licence 262528C and carry full insurance, and we stand behind every install with ongoing local service.
Every Albury project starts with a heat-loss calculation and a fixed-fee design. We size each system to your building, your climate and your living patterns.
All-electric air-to-water heat pumps sized from a heat-loss calculation for frosty border mornings. COP 3.5–5.5, with running costs typically 60–75% lower than gas.
In-slab underfloor for new homes in Thurgoona, Lavington and Wodonga's growth areas. Low 35–45 °C flow temperatures and a pipework design life of 30+ years.
Panel and column radiators for older brick homes on timber floors. Pipework runs through the subfloor, and rooms warm up in 15–25 minutes.
Steel panel K11, K21, K22 and K33 models, flat panels, Klassic columns and Alubain towel warmers, each sized to its room's heat loss.
What drives the price of a whole-home system, from $20,000 to $60,000+, and how to compare quotes on design rather than headline price.
Heat pump, gas and electric hot water installed by the same licensed team, so the whole house can come off gas in one project.
The hardest hour for a heat pump on the border isn't the coldest one. It's a still, damp July morning hovering just above freezing, when moisture in the air freezes onto the outdoor coil. Albury mornings are often like that: BOM's Albury Airport records show 9 am humidity averaging around 90% in July. The heat pump clears the ice by running a short defrost cycle, briefly drawing heat back out of the water circuit. Handled well, nobody notices. Handled badly, the floor cools, the radiators go lukewarm and the unit sits in a puddle of ice.
Out of town the margins are tighter. BOM's Rutherglen station averages roughly 41 sub-zero mornings a year against Albury's 17, and Beechworth sits higher in the hills. On those sites we look harder at insulation and, where an existing gas boiler still has life in it, sometimes keep it as a backup. For more on choosing and siting the outdoor unit, see air-source hydronic heat pumps and our heat pump range. Our Canberra hydronic running costs guide covers a similarly frosty climate.
Written from on-site experience by the AHHAC Technical Team.
"The system has changed our lives. From the first quote to the final commissioning, the AHHAC team were punctual, on-budget and professional on site every single day. I strongly recommend them — we've now had them back for two more properties."
"AHHAC delivered our 22-zone underfloor system on time, on budget and to spec. The crew were tidy, the documentation was thorough, and the commissioning was textbook. Couldn't ask for more from a trade partner."
"The annual service has caught small issues before they became big ones — twice now. The detailed report after each visit is genuinely useful. This is what professional service looks like."