When we finished our basement, we heated the travertine floors in the new bathroom which was over slab. We did not, however, heat the slate that is in the laundry room on the same level. Whoa what a difference!! I can't walk in the laundry room without shoes or socks - it gets really cold. I live in Maryland. When we then moved on to renovating the kitchen on the main level, we opted to heat them as well. We do not keep the floors set on "warm", we simply keep them "not cold" if that makes any sense. In the summer we just turn them off completely. It does add to the renovation expense, but was absolutely and positively worth every penny.

We went with the wire mesh mats. The tile guys did it. The kitchen tile guy had not done it before but contacted the manufacturer ahead of time and talked thru any questions he had. All of the manufacturers will take a copy of your floor plan and will come up with a mat layout that is the most efficient and least expensive - at no cost to you. We changed our kitchen plan a few times and they updated as we did, again without charging us anything.

HTH!!!

Radiant heat is soooo nice.. we have it in our garages, basement and master bath. I wished we could have done our whole house in radiant, but not practical when you also need forced air A/C..

My husband and a friend laid all the tubing themselves.. in a 3500 sf basement, + 1200sf garage, over a weekend, right before the concrete was poured -very easy and not costly.

You do also need a boiler, which can cost anywhere between 2500 - 8K depending on the square footage you are doing.

{{!gwi}}

Good to have some warmth underfoot.

Using what's known as a membrane, you can get some separation to prevent thermal bridging, so your tiles remain warmer at all times for the same power consumption, and the slab is a bit less heated. It saves money in operating costs.

OMG!!!! The best investment ever made for me in my bathrooms. I had Nuheat heating mats installed over a plywood sub-floor by the tiler and the electrician installed the thermostat. We keep the temp around 80 all year round. Works like a charm. We're just about ready to remodel our kitchen and DH says he doesn't want to rip up the floor that we are going to keep to put them in. We will see who gets their way!

I can only add to heated floor praise. I've had Suntouch heat mats for a long time now. We first put it in the master bath (not big, just the main one). We liked it so much that we put it in our den (main living area!). Carpet and big dogs do not mix, and tile was the very best option for us. Again, loved it so much it went in my bath 2 years ago, and I put that down myself, and laid the travertine myself. I got someone else to make the connection for me, but it really was that easy.

It is definitely going in my new kitchen. A must have for me now. The cost to operate is negligible. The materials weren't so expensive that we couldn't do it. And that heat will be there when I'm ready to go to the old folks home.