When entrepreneurs Charles and Josephine Pugh rented a property with “uncomfortable and uncontrollable” underfloor heating (UFH), it moved away from the world of furniture they had invested in since the late 1970s.
The couple, who founded British retailer MultiYork in 1978, set up Wunda Group in 2006 at the height of the ‘green homes revolution’ when warehouse conversions and self-builds were de rigueur.
The Pughs’ home heating problem was centered on the underfloor screed—a layer of concrete where piping is traditionally embedded—with pipe centers too far apart. With no control, there was a slow response time to heat and the floor overheated. Pugh thought the existing systems were “slow and archaic”.
Read more: ‘Our women’s hiking trousers saved our business – we sold over 50,000’
Monmouthshire-based Wunda now designs and supplies energy-efficient UFH systems and has cut back to the “DIY consumer” at a time of rising energy bills. The company says it employs 90 staff and has booked more than £10m in sales this year.
The heating firm is also a family affair. As Charles CEO and Josephine CFO, his daughter Josephine is managing director, while grandson Sam Jump is currently head of business development.
The business took off in 2008 when Wunda reoriented itself as installers sought kits and components after the self-build market collapsed.
In 2010, their former base near Chepstow was renovated into offices in an old chicken farm shed. Pugh still visited trade shows and came across grooves in an American exhibitor’s aluminum chip board panel, which was used as a final solution in construction.
They pioneered a version with high-compressed polystyrene and placed the sample down in a chicken shed, with a heat pump that internally moved thermal energy out. The close piping means it can also be run at lower temperatures.
Jump, who was working in a warehouse at the time and previously led a team of outreaches offering memberships, recalled: “Everyone was walking around in T-shirts in the winter and the response rate was unreal, the heat pump was operating at optimal flow temperatures with co-efficient performance.”
However, their product was initially met with skepticism from installers unwilling to test new products. “Where a lot of people think of UFH as this uncomfortable system, we now have a fast response system and it warms up just as fast as radiators, if not faster.”
A growing DIY industry, building extensions rather than renovating or moving homes, has helped boost Wunda’s profits.
