I am looking to put floor heat in my new kitchen, but not quite sure what approach to take: cable, mats, cable in netting, etc. The floor surface will be 12″ tile. The underlayment will be 1/2 cement board over 3/4 T&G. My local tile installer recommended a company that used the cable approach. Basically a long cable strung in an “S” shaped pattern along the floor. Seems simple enough to me, but since I have never done electric floor heat before I am looking for some guidance.
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I have the cable under one floor and the mats under three others. Like them both. The cable version is cheaper and more difficult to install. If you go with the cable, set the cables at 4" apart and cover it all over with a self leveling product, unless you are real good with a trowel. Lay the cable out once with out clips to get the length right. Mark where the cable beds at a corner of the room with masking tape as a reference. Screw down the clips and put it down. It is as simple as it seems, assuming you can run a circuit and set tile.
The brands that I have are NuHeat for the mats and InFloorHeat by Maxxon for the cable. I like the programmable controller that I have with the Nuheat systems, but the air temp sensor that came with the cable version is great in the master bath. I set the heat back at night and the floor comes on when the air temp drops.
The manufacturers recommend a dedicated 20A, 120 volt circuit, though unless you have a really big version, 15A is more than enough. The NuHeat controllers have a GFCI built in, another nice feature. If the version you get does not have this feature, I would recommend using a GFCI breaker to power the circuit.
Tim,
Thanks for the sharing your experience. One concern I have with the mat is how well the tile will adhere to it. Did you have any trouble with this? Another concern with the mat is trying to adhere a large mat down to the floor all at once. I have a rather large area to do. This is where I think the cable approach has a advantage.
Given you have done both mat and cable, which would use if you were to do another floor?
Gene
I did have a little trouble with the mat. Getting the tiles to stick with no air under them was difficult until I figured out what I was doing wrong. I had put down a layer of thinset and pressed the mat into/onto this layer, I covered it over with plywood and then put down the tile the next day. Not the reecommended way. Better way: put down 1/8" thinset, put down mat, 1/8" thinset, backbutter and set tiles all in one operation. The pressed mat dried with some odd ridges and depressions and I now have a few hollow sounding tiles to remind me of that lesson. The large area is not that great of a challenge with the mat. It rolls up and down over thinset very easily. The largest one I installed was about 12x8, I think.
I put the cable down over Durock screwed down to 1/2" sub flooring, I put the first two mats down over a 4" concrete slab. I would use the mat anywhere. I would use the cable only over a wood subfloor.
The main difference between the two different versions that I have is the controllers. One (Infloor) senses air temperature and powers the floor to meet an adjustable setpoint (just like a standard furnace t-stat). It has a thermister imbedded in the floor and an internal setting to limit floor max temp. This controller is not programmable. On/off and air temp. The other (NuHeat) senses floor temperature with an imbedded thermistor and controls only on floor temp. It did come with GFCI protection and 4 programmable modes. No on/off, though. To disable the floor you have to shut off the breaker (ore set the temp real low).
Given the lessons learned, assuming I could put the clips down (this would be very difficult on a slab), I would go with the cable version.
Tim
Good words from Tim.
I'd go for the cable.