Electric underfloor heating - tiled bathroom floor

quoia

It's a possibility that we will use ceramic floor tiles as part of our bathroom renovation.
Since these are rather cold at certain times of year to the feet I was consideing fitting the underfloor electric heating system to take the chill off.

Anybody used and/or fitted such a system.
Any recomendations?
Make, model, price, place purchased etc ?

Obviously looking for the cheapest way to do this providing the quality of the materials, build quality etc are actually up to doing the job. If the "heating wiring" should fail after a year or 2 then ripping up the floor tiles to replace it is not something I'm looking forward to !!!

snow_flake

This maybe a good website to have a read up on what your looking for

https://www.warmup.com

If you have a topps tile store near you they normally have a demo of this working

There web site https://www.toppstiles.co.uk

frizz_head

A lot of my friends have this and its lovely - you really notice the warmth. When we had our bathroom fitted five years ago, we enquired about it, and our plumber suggested we just rely on the central heating pipes (which run under the bathroom floor) to provide the warmth. Which works to an extent. Its only on the odd occasion when we have been up in the night, when the heating is off, that we miss not having had underfloor heating installed.

DIRK_GENTLY

If anything goes wrong with these the whole floor has to be ripped up again,expensive to fit,expensive to run,MUST be wired in by a qualified electrician.
My advice-steer clear.

plumb1_2

And dont forget to use Flexible tile adeshive and grout,as there will be movement,with the floor heating up and going cold.

rayed

Hi,

I used the Wicks's system for my bathroom floor about eighteen months ago. Works fine, the only drawback I have noticed is that I use a timer ( to save electricity ) so that it only comes on on at the most used times - but this is no good when you get up in the middle of the night for a wee!

The only other problem was the extra thickness of adhesive required to cover the heating elements, apart from the cost it took days to dry before I could use the bathroom.

robby-01

Undertile heating is excellent .I would imagine that it will be standard fit under tiled floors in years to come.I have fitted a cosytoes system in my bathroom and it is the best money I have spent in a long time.This system involved taping a thin wire to the floor and although the final connections need to be made by an electrician the cable install can be done by anyone with a lot of patience it really is simple.I accept that if it goes wrong the floor needs to come up but if it is installed correctly there is nothing to go wrong it is just a cable that gets warm when current flows through it (all cables do this to some degree).THe final connections must be made by an electrician and the whole installation must be protected by an rcd and then registered with building control to show compliance with part p of the building regulations.
purchased my system from local independent bathroom showroom.They come in kits in sizes to suit your room.It isnt installed under your bathroom suite so take that into consideration when measuring up.My bathroom is average in size and the kit cost about £180.I am a spark so I did the full install myself.The taping down was a pain .
If you asked me for a quote I would recommend you did that bit yourself.On a small to medium bathroom that would save you about half a days labour.The cable is tested before installation so any damage becomes apparent before the tiles go down.The rest of the job should take about half a day and you may also need to buy a seperate rcd if your consumer unit dosent have one.
Get it done .

quoia

I'd like to thank everyone for all of your replies.

For anyone that might be following in my footsteps ...........

I looked at several systems, DK Heating, Warmup, Wickes own (which as it happens is a "Warmup" heating cable assembly but cheaper), and Homebase's DEVI system.

Some (like Wickes) only have a thermostat device (£29.99) but you need a timer for "automatic" operation or you turn it on/off manually.
The "heating element" can also just come just as a coil of wire which needs to be carefully layed out at the right spacing and taped to the floor. Others come as a self-adhesive net mesh where all this spacing is done for you and you just cut the mesh to make the shape/layout you require.

Anyway I was looking at using a timer thermostat from DEVI and probably a cable system from DK (cheapest solution that did what I fancied)

The DEVI programmer & timer & stat is really, really smart. (Homebase usually £89.99 but £69.99 in January? sale)

Not only can you set times at which it will be on "full" (you decide temp) for the "before work" bathroom visit at 8am in the morning, and again (home from work) at 7pm in the evening, BUT it can be on tickover (selectable number of degrees lower than "full") during the night AND off all day when the house is empty.
Additionally it also monitors the air temperature in the bathroom and "intelligently" calculates when to turn on so that the desired floor temperature is achieved at the right time. (If it is extra cold then it might turn on 30 minutes early, if it is a warm day then maybe turn on 30 minutes later than usual) It also "knows" if you've opened a window for a short time and "recognises" this as a temporary event and can "ignore" it.

I only needed a 1.5 sq metre heated area and DK's was the cheapest available locally that was an "exact fit" (Homebase's smallest was 2 sq metres at £99.99 - also Jan? sale - usually £119.99 I think)

Anyway before I lashed out with the cash I just checked eBay.
Found a few stats and timers and heating wires/meshes available including exactly the same DEVI programmer I'd seen in Homebase but £10 cheaper on a "buy it now".
Also found one of these DEVI programmers WITH a 2sq metre DEVI cable mesh
Decided this was worth a punt.
Put my bid in with about an hour to go (off to a football match) - met the £70 reserve - returned a few hours later - it was mine for £74 + £4.88 P&P.

RESULT OR WHAT ? ? ? ?

£78.88 for a £90 stat and £120 heating cable ! (£70 and £100 whilst Homebase sale prices on)


Whilst searching I also came across a top notch thermostatic shower unit for (opening bid) £30 + £11 P&P which I also won at that price. £41 total ! !
It was actually a "buy it now" for £90, reduced from a previous no bids BIN auction of £120, which had followed a no-bids auction that was BIN for £150.

Shower was also at Homebase - ONLY £149.99 reduced for a short period from £199.99

Was that my lucky weekend ! !

robby-01

glad to here you got a bargain.Are you aware that the timer stat has to be fitted outside of the bathroom .