When entrepreneurs Charles and Josephine Pugh rented a property with “uncomfortable and uncontrollable” underfloor heating (UFH), it sparked a departure from the world of bespoke furniture they had been invested in since the late 1970s.
The couple, who had founded British retailer Multiyork in 1978, set up Wunda Group in 2006 at the height of the “green house revolution”, when barn conversions and self-builds were all the rage.
The Pugh family’s home heating problem centered on the sub-floor screed – a level layer of concrete into which pipes were traditionally embedded – with the pipe centers too far apart. Without the controls, there was a slow response time to heat and the floor got too hot. The Pughs believed that the existing systems were “slow and antiquated”.
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Monmouthshire-based Wunda now designs and supplies energy efficient UFH systems and has reached out to the ‘DIY consumer’ at a time of rising energy bills. The company employs 90 people and says it has made sales of more than £10m this year.
The heating company is also a family business. With Charles as CEO and Josephine CFO, their daughter Josephine is managing director, while grandson Sam Jump is currently head of business development.
The business began in 2008 when Wunda refocused as installers sought kits and components after the self-build market collapsed.
In 2010, their former base near Chepstow was in an old chicken farm converted into offices. The Pughs were still visiting trade shows and came across an American exhibitor’s grooved aluminum panel, which was used as a last resort in construction.
They rolled out a version with high-compression polystyrene and put a sample down in the chicken coop, with a heat pump that moved the thermal energy outside. The closer pipe also meant it could be run at lower temperatures.
Jump, who was working in the warehouse at the time and previously ran a team of organizers offering membership, recalled: “Everyone was walking around in T-shirts in the winter and the response rate was unreal, the heat pump was running at optimum touring temperature with a performance quotient.”
However, their product was initially met with skepticism from installers who did not want to test new products. “Where most people think UFH is this awkward system, now we have a quick response system and it heats up as fast as radiators, if not faster.”
A booming DIY industry, renovating houses or building extensions rather than moving in, has helped boost Wunda’s profits.