British underfloor heating adapted for Kashmir reaches 15 years in business

A heating business in Kashmir is marking 15 years since it began introducing British-style electric underfloor heating to homes in the region, under the locally familiar name "Electric Hamam".

The Heating Store, based in Srinagar in northern India, was formally launched in 2011 after founder Taham Mubashar began experimenting with underfloor heating components brought from Britain.

Mubashar had encountered the technology while studying at City University London. In Kashmir, homes are often built and heated differently, with many families using wood-burning appliances, portable heaters and traditional stone-floored hamams during the region's long winters.

The first installations did not perform as he had hoped. Different floor construction, insulation standards and interruptions to the electricity supply posed problems for equipment and installation methods originating in another market.

The company says the experience led it to develop local installation practices and to reconsider how it explained the product to customers.

Underfloor heating was largely unfamiliar to many Kashmiri householders when the business started. Traditional hamams, however, were well known: a masonry and stone-floor heating arrangement warmed by a wood-burning furnace. The Heating Store began using the name "Electric Hamam" in its marketing in 2011 to describe electric floor heating in terms customers would recognise.

According to the company, the expression subsequently gained wider use among customers and heating installers in the region.

The business concentrated on room-by-room installations, allowing households to heat selected rooms without installing an entire central heating system. Electric underfloor heating does not burn fuel inside the room, although electrical safety, insulation and running costs remain important considerations.

The Heating Store says it has worked with heating products from international suppliers, including British names, and continues to investigate how materials and installation methods can be adapted to Indian building conditions.

The company's account of its development offers an example of how established British home technology can require substantial modification when it moves into a market with different buildings, infrastructure and customer expectations.

The Heating Store's website is https://theheatingstore.in/