RenovationsHeated Floors in the Master Bathroom April 26, 2016 The master bath has been coming together slowly, but surely. We’re down to the last few details to make her all pretty and complete in my book. I’ve shared a lot about the master bath progress, but one thing I haven’t shared is the little luxury lurking beneath the surface. When we started planning this bath design, we were going for a luxury bath on a budget. One thing that a lot of luxury baths have are heated floors. My husband was really excited by this idea. Tile can get so cold! The more I thought about it, I could totally see the benefit and we started looking into it. We came across Warmup Floor Heating Systems and loved all that we read about their product. We’re doing 150 square feet of tile in this area between the bath and two closets, so we decided to give this feature a try. It really surprised me how easy it was to install. We started by covering the backer board in this Electric Underfloor Heating Mat. As you can see, it’s mesh, but has the blue coil that actually heats the floors. You can cut the mesh to fit into your space as long as the coil stays intact. The coil can’t ever overlap and it has to be within 2″ of other coils (as seen in pic above). We put it into both closets, so that we can get dressed and ready with toasty toes! We made sure not to put it under the tub or vanities and focused just on where we’d be standing. It can’t go under any permanent fixtures such as the tub or toilet. We also had to make sure it was the specified distance from water. But that part really was easy based off of how we’d use the room and where we’d stand. All of these laying specifications are spelled out in the instruction manual. After getting all of the mesh in place where we wanted it, it was time to lay the tile. As y’all know, we hired out the tile in this bath. While we’ve done tile-work in the past, we were on a major time crunch for this room and Chris was tied up with so many other renovation projects. Our trusted tile man, Fernando, has worked with this type of heated floor system before and said that it was so easy to lay over. They were just extra careful when they were putting the thinset (what attaches to the tile) down so that the coil didn’t get punctured. You can read more about our tile in this post. Once actually laying the coil on the floor was finished, we had to wire in the thermostat. The manual says that it should be installed by a certified electrician, which worked well for us since that’s what Chris does. But we would suggest hiring this part out if you don’t have significant experience in this area. It would be a small and inexpensive job to hire out, but it does need to be done when you’re roughing in the room, not after the room is complete. It’s at a great location right here on this interior wall. And it’s so easy to set and change the temperature you want the floors to be. This thermostat also has an energy saving feature that allows it to evaluate the house temperatures and electricity usage associated with it and then adjust accordingly. I suddenly feel like we have a smart house! Warmup also just launched the new version of this thermostat: the 4IE. It has even more energy saving features with smartphone control. Y’all, it really blows my mind what technology is capable of these days….ahhh, I sound so old. Chris may have been the most excited initially for this addition to the bath, but now, I’m sold. Tile is always so cold to me year-round and now, the floor actually feels warm and is so cozy. Plus, beyond us enjoying it, this is a great selling feature in our area, so it’s an investment that’s really worth it should you ever sell. That point really sold us on installing it. Now we’ve just got to get this room finished up so we can make the best use of this fun feature! It’s a small list left and we’ll be officially revealing soon, though you guys have definitely seen a ton of the progress. If you missed some of the previous bath update posts, you can check them out here: The New Persian Rug Our Budget-friendly Clawfoot Tub DIY Farmhouse Vanities The Brass Lantern Light Fixture Bathroom & Tile Progress Thanks so much to Warmup Heated Floor Systems for providing the heated floor product for this post. All opinions, text, and photos are 100% my own.
Alyssa / Ten Feet Off Beale says April 26, 2016 at 1:52 pm Obsessed!!!! I so desperately want heated floors. Maybe one day!! Reply
Julia@Cuckoo4Design says April 28, 2016 at 7:05 am Heated floors are such a dream come true! I’ve always wanted them Reply