heat pads for floor

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480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
Pros: Toasty floor in winter.

Cons: PITA to intall, both the pads/cable system and the wiring. If the tile guys do it, it will be wrong... damaged cable, missing temp. sensor, cables too close together or too far apart. Turns into one of those "If you want it done right, ya gotta do it yourself" deals. If done wrong, the GFI will constantly trip. So now you need to locate the fault, pull up the tile(s), fix it, and repair everything.

When all is said and done, it takes two hours to learn the thermostat (and you thought your VCR is impossible?!?!). Three if you're the homeowner.
 

danickstr

Senior Member
one important thing to remember: if you install the kind that gets buried in tile, mortar, etc., be sure to have the person in charge witness your ohm reading on the wire when you are done. this way the tile guys cannot screw up the wire and try to blame you.

check the ohms before you start and after, and get a witness.

it is tricky to get the wires to lay out right, but ask the authority to give you priority aresa and then if you can use a "dead zone", like under a cabinet to wind out the extra if you need it, or cheat an area that will not get much foot traffic.
 

bkludecke

Senior Member
Location
Big Bear Lake, CA
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
We put in alot of Easy Heat Warm Tiles. It's a cable system and as previously mentioned it takes some practice to get it right the first time. We have had very few problems and I've got about 500sqft of it in my own home. My wife figures out all the control stuff and I walk around on nice warm tile floors. We probably do about 6 installs per year.
 
Absolutely install yourself and check ohm readings before the tile people come in. I had to repair the stuff after tile guy nicked it in two places during install. Its an interesting process to find the faults, but not fun to repair. Maybe hire a babysitter for the tile people while they install:roll:
 

celtic

Senior Member
Location
NJ
Ohm'ing is a vital neccessaity(sp?) here.

Hand the readings to the GC...when and if they ohm out differently after the tile job, no one *should* be able to blame you.
 
The Nuheat systems we install have a ground fault/ohms alarm (about $20) That you clip on the leads in the thermo box and leave until trim..it will start beeping if someone damages the mat or wires..
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
TOMWELDS2 said:
The Nuheat systems we install have a ground fault/ohms alarm (about $20) That you clip on the leads in the thermo box and leave until trim..it will start beeping if someone damages the mat or wires..

It will start beeping, then someone will just turn it off or remove it because it's annoying. They could care less about your wiring, just they can't hear their blaring radio.

Every time I use one of those, it's either turned off, taken off, or the batteries have been removed.
 

e57

Senior Member
Useless waste of energy IMO. I beleive the UL people have limited these things with good reason to a certain amount of wattage per foot - but not enough to be effective in thicker materials. If you are to install them you need to remind people that they do not heat the room - and for that matter will be barely noticable when even turned on for a while. Sure it will take the chill off a bare foot barely - but this is a hardly effective method of doing so. And usually ends up in a finger pointing party at the end as customer expectation is usually too high. As we are not in control of the stone/tile thickness or other factors in thier effectiveness - let the tile guy sell them...
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
e57 said:
Useless waste of energy IMO. I beleive the UL people have limited these things with good reason to a certain amount of wattage per foot - but not enough to be effective in thicker materials. If you are to install them you need to remind people that they do not heat the room - and for that matter will be barely noticable when even turned on for a while. Sure it will take the chill off a bare foot barely - but this is a hardly effective method of doing so. And usually ends up in a finger pointing party at the end as customer expectation is usually too high. As we are not in control of the stone/tile thickness or other factors in thier effectiveness - let the tile guy sell them...
Sorry, e, but I have to disagree with you. Last year, I installed a fairly large floor-heat system in a new kitchen w/ full bath addition, around 400 sq.ft., controlled by a single automatic T-stat. The customer absolutely loves the system.

The floor is terra cotta, about 3/8" thick, above the thinset. She understands that it warms the floor more than the room, but that floor, over a crawl space, would freeze the toes without it, and it does indeed make the room feel warmer.
 

stickboy1375

Senior Member
Location
Litchfield, CT
e57 said:
Useless waste of energy IMO. I beleive the UL people have limited these things with good reason to a certain amount of wattage per foot - but not enough to be effective in thicker materials. If you are to install them you need to remind people that they do not heat the room - and for that matter will be barely noticable when even turned on for a while. Sure it will take the chill off a bare foot barely - but this is a hardly effective method of doing so. And usually ends up in a finger pointing party at the end as customer expectation is usually too high. As we are not in control of the stone/tile thickness or other factors in thier effectiveness - let the tile guy sell them...


You are installing them wrong if your customer is unhappy...
 

electricmanscott

Senior Member
Location
Boston, MA
:smile:
e57 said:
Useless waste of energy IMO. I beleive the UL people have limited these things with good reason to a certain amount of wattage per foot - but not enough to be effective in thicker materials. If you are to install them you need to remind people that they do not heat the room - and for that matter will be barely noticable when even turned on for a while. Sure it will take the chill off a bare foot barely - but this is a hardly effective method of doing so. And usually ends up in a finger pointing party at the end as customer expectation is usually too high. As we are not in control of the stone/tile thickness or other factors in thier effectiveness - let the tile guy sell them...


You must not have actually experienced the product because all of this is wrong.

Edit:Just spent some quality time in my warm bathroom with toasty warm feet. I would never think abouot installing tile in my house without this stuff.
 
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e57

Senior Member
stickboy1375 said:
You are installing them wrong if your customer is unhappy...

My end of the install is always just fine - Tile guy's is a major factor on the other hand. Sure a thin-set bed with a lot of contact surface are on thin ceramic tile - No problem! 1/2" - 3/4" stone with a wide knotched trowel is a much different story! And that end of this multi-trade install that I (as an Electrician) have no control over.

So I don't spec them - just connect them. Have the tile guy put down the pad, temp it up with the thermostat - "See it gets warm..." Disconnect it, document ohm values, put on those little alarms if they have them - then come back at trim out after the tile or stone is down and re-connect it. Damage during tile install, different ohm values or low heat output at the surface - not my problem...

I once had a GC turn on one in a bath room and sit there for over an hour with an IR thermometer waiting for a change in temp. Turns out the tile guy put a 1/2" dura-rock layer over the pad before setting the tiles. I have also had people expect that they can use these in place of "Heating". Things like this, and something as subjective as the tempature sensitivity of someone else's foot have fixed my position on them.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Keep in mind that the thickness (or, more accurately, the mass) of a floor will determine how fast the temperature can change, but once raised to the desired temperature, the energy required to maintain it will vary with heat loss, but not with the mass of the floor.
 

LawnGuyLandSparky

Senior Member
e57 said:
Useless waste of energy IMO. I beleive the UL people have limited these things with good reason to a certain amount of wattage per foot - but not enough to be effective in thicker materials. If you are to install them you need to remind people that they do not heat the room - and for that matter will be barely noticable when even turned on for a while. Sure it will take the chill off a bare foot barely - but this is a hardly effective method of doing so. And usually ends up in a finger pointing party at the end as customer expectation is usually too high. As we are not in control of the stone/tile thickness or other factors in thier effectiveness - let the tile guy sell them...

I can assure you the Nu-heat / Warm floors system is capable of heating rooms if the insulation values of the ceiling, walls and windows are up to modern standards.
 
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