I am a homeowner planning a major bathroom renovation in the spring. This is my first question in what I’m sure will be many leading up to the actual renovation.
I’m planning on using an electric heating mat under the tile floor. I’d appreciate any tips you can offer for working with these mats and I would be interested in any personal recommendations or warnings about the individual brands that are available.
Replies
I've used three or four versions of the mats as well as the plain cable.
For DIY I'd recommend NuHeat. It's the easiest to work with, and least easiest to damage the cables.
Realize that this heat will not heat the room, it's just to take the edge off a cold floor.
Thinset and screw cement board to your subfloor. Thinset the mat to the cement board. Thinset the tile to the mat. Grout. Drink beer and be admired by your family.
NuHeat, as well as the other companies, have decent websites. Read up on the installation instructions and see if they make sense to you. If not, fire away wit more questions.
Mongo
For installation suggestions, you might want to look at the Ditra installation handbook. It has a number of different scenarios (all using Ditra, of course). The suggestions for installing a resistance heat grid is about halfway down:
http://www.schluter.com/english/products/2002/pdf/ditra_handbook.pdf
I will probably use Ditra and follow their suggestions as I want to avoid building up the height of the floor too much and their approach without cement backer board seems to require the least total thickness of materials.
Hey guys thanks for your quick response. I haven't decided whether to use the cement board or the Ditra but I have a another question that applies to either of these two options.
My house is 50 years old and the subfloor consists of 1" x 5" boards laid diagonally over joists 16" oc. What thickness of plywood should I put down over the existing subfloor to create a good base but without raising the floor height any more that I have to?
Edited 2/5/2007 7:03 pm ET by Flips
Basically you should aim for 1 and 1/4" total thinkness subfloor below tile to have adequate stiffness and to avoid tile and grout cracking. We have done 3/4" plywood followed by thinset and 1/2" Hardibacker to give the stiffness needed. Any second layer on your original sub-floor should be screwed down with 8" spacing in all directions. I believe that the Schluter folks suggest that Ditra with the unmodified mortar below and mortar on top is a good stiffener too. I tend to do extra when laying a sub-floor so 1/2" plywood well screwed onto your existing sub-floor will give you the stiffness you need.
I guess I just don't get it. Our bathroom has fabric mats from Penney's over the tile, and it's 20 below outside. Why do I need a heated floor? Are some people too spoiled?
Fabric mats on top of the tile for you.Heating mats under the tile for him.A person who has bare tile might consider you to be spoiled.Different strokes for different folks.Mongo