Electric heating mats under tile
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Looking for info from those who have installed electric heating mats over backerboard/under tile. Any installation problems or long term problems? Any recommendations for particular manufacturer, or whose product to stay away from?
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Did two bathrooms with "Heatweave" in 98'...tile backer/heatweave/thickbed mortar/marble tile....still going...great product...not cheap!
Remember...these heat sources are for "comfort heat" and are NOT primary heat sources!
Many other brands available... not enough data to compare. Although I would consider "Hear Weave" a professional grade as apposed to the big box brands that carry the price point advantage.....IMOH
Does feel really good .....nice step up!...................Iron Helix
I've had my electrician and tile guy do this with two different products.
First installation was the SunTouch mat. I think that was the brand. Orange weave with heat cabling. That one went OK.
Second one was with EasyHeat's cable. No mat. Just lay out the cable, using their plastic thingamajigs to capture the loop ends.
I found the EasyHeat method easier to install, in that you can run the looping into and around an irregular area more readily than having to tailor sections of mat.
Both my installations used a fairly large format tile as the finish . . . 12 or 13 inch squares. Large tiles tend to bridge the cabling and you can get a flat job just by having your tile guy get liberal with the thinset.
If I was going to use a smaller tile size over it, I would have my tile guy float over the cabling with a leveling compound, then go with the thinset and tile.
Installed the SunTouch, a floor warming mat (30" x 6') about 2 weeks ago. This was on a concrete floor. I skim coated a layer of thin set over it, then 13" X13" tile. Was no problem with the install.
I bought the product @ the local Home Depot (7-10 day lead time). The mat was $179. & I went with their upgraded digital programmable floor stat control ($149) . Standard T- stat costs $72. The mat also comes in other sizes,
30" x 4' $139.
30" x 8' $219
30" x10' $258
You can group multiple mats up to 150sq.ft.
The system seems to work real well. Will chek with the Home owners in a few weeks & see if there is a spike in their elect bill. I know of others who have used this same product & have had good reports from all.
Check the web site http://www.suntouchsupport.com
Hope this helps!
I went with Flextherm, a Canadan co. two years ago in my 14 X 14
sunroom on a slab. The strongest recomendation I could make is to
bury the cable in a soupy leveling cement for a tile base.
This heat is great. I make my poker buddies take off their shoes at the
game table on poker nights and every one agrees all houses should
have radiant heat..................Frank
I have installed two different versions in my home. One was Infloor brand, which consisted of a spool of wire secured by clips . This was the least expensive, but the most difficult to install (took about 1/2 mud to cover the clips) and the other 3 baths and a laundy area, used the NuHeat brand. This one was a fibrous mat with thin wires encased in it. Much thinner and easier installation.
The controls are the main difference from system to system. The infloor system has an imbedded temperature probe (RTD) that serves to limit the maximum temperature to a preset level. Within the limits internally set in the controller, the system is operated based on room air temperature and a manually adjustable setpoint, like any typical thermostat. The NuHeat system has a much different controller, programmable thermostat, but it controls based soley on the floor temperature. At night, my furnace is setback to about 65 and then in the middle of the night the floor in the master bath is warm, very nice on bare feet. In the other rooms, I program them to be warm during expected use.