Coir matting insert by front door in tiled hallway

[runningLou]

We are getting our hallway/kitchen/utility tiled. I was going to ask the tiler to run the tiles straight from the front door, but he has suggested leaving a rectangle to insert a block of coir matting.
He said this would also allow an access point for pipes/electrics.
Is this useful? If you've had it done, do you regret not getting continuous tiles?
If coir mat is a good idea, can you recommend where to get it cut to custom size? Am thinking 50cm x 1m but is a bigger block better? Hallway is roughly 2m wide and 2m long before the stairs start.

I personally would prefer continuous tile and you can always put a mat on top. It sounds like you would just be creating crevices for dirt to build up. Plus in general custom stuff like that often doesn't age well.

I wouldn't do it. I have this at home and it needs changing at least twice a year as it gets dirty and flat (two adults, one pre schooler, not vast amounts of visitors).

You would want at least a 1m square block to step into if you did go down this route, but it is imo more maintenance than I would like.

The size is irrelevant though, as you buy a bit then cut it to size yourself with a knife when it needs changing. Its pretty easy to do.

So would you say an insert is more work to keep clean than a mat lying on top of the tiles?

How much of an issue is leaving a 'trapdoor' for access to pipework and cables etc? Basically the whole downstairs will be fully tiled (other than sitting and dining rooms with varnished timber floorboards) so will this cause problems for plumbers / electricians in future?

The cupboard under the stairs will still be boarded so maybe they could access through there?

We had an insert and loved it, our carpenter made a wooden surround and it looked fab. Even with country living, dogs, horses and plenty of mud we only changed it every 18 months which was incredibly easy to do.

We moved and I miss it.

We had one in our old house and have one in the new one. They are brilliant as you don't trip over the mat and in doesn't move on the flooring. Lift the mat out and give it a shake periodically. Cleaning the recess is no big deal. Your tiler has made a very sensible suggestion imo. You can buy rubber or plastic backed coir from a flooring shop so it's easy to replace should you need to after a few years.

Imagine if you need to take tiles up to have work done. Far more hassle.

We have one. It was there when we moved in, so I didn't make a conscious choice to have one. I like it though. I have no idea about access as we've never pulled ours up, and we've been there for six years. I only ever hoover (rather than clean) it, and I hoover twice a week. Its not at all dirty or flat, but we do have a porch and we would wipe the wetness off our shoes in the porch and then come into the hall where the coir matting is.

If you've found an insert useful, what size did you have?

PP suggested 1m x 1m?

I have one and it is fantastic. It is starting to look a teeny bit tired but it has been down for 4 years. Mine is the width of the hall and across the bottom of the stairs. Looks great after a hoover.

As an access point to get to your pipework it is a no brainer. My entire downstairs is concrete floored so all pipes/cables are in the walls so I have never had to consider it but if yours is wooden floorboards then this is a great suggestion by your tiler.

When it looks tired, you just replace it. It doesn't move or slide, there are no worries about it catching on the door etc. I love it.

Our entire porch has coir matting for the floor, it's fab. Traps all the dirt so none of it makes it into the house, a brief hoover and it's fine. We don't have dogs, admittedly, but I can't imagine what people are doing to their mats to need to change them after 18 months!

I think inserts are fab, having a mat in the way would drive me crackers. I'd probably go for one the same width as the door.

That's exactly what we've done. All joints are under the trapdoor so there should never be a problem anywhere under the wooden living room floor, or tiled kitchen / hallway.

Ikea sell great coir mats which we've been using for a while.

It is more work than I'd like for a fixed mat and ours spends probably 50% of the time looking a bit shabby and on the downward spiral to replacement. I'd have to hoover a loose mat just as much but could just bung that in the washing machine periodically to keep it clean.

What sort of pipework and cables do you actually need access to though? Why? Genuine question!

We had one put in, it was fab. It had some hard use over the years, kids, 3 dogs, horse but it did it's job over the years. Had it in about 7 years (before we moved) and didn't need replacing.
Will be having one in again where we are now when we get round to it.
If you google coir matting, one of the first results are for made to measure.

We have it too and we love it. Looks really smart.

Had two in the last house and they were fab. (We replaced using these cheap IKEA mats cut to size). Made electricians and plumbers happy and meant stuff didn't move at all.

Ours was about an 80 x 60 gap, and allowed DH access (and he's not a small bloke).

We have one too and it does need replacing but we've been here six years and I think it had been in situ for some years before we moved in. I just had a look on the internet when I thought about replacing it - there are a couple of places online where you send the measurements and they cut the mat to size/

We used to have one in a previous house and it was a bit of a pain to clean the slot it fit into, but not unmanageable. We have a turtle mat now over tiles and I think I prefer it, easier to clean in the washing machine.

Ours was about 1m x 1.3m.

We did the tiles all the way to the door, but the porch has an ikea mat, the trampa linked above. Two next to each other fill the floor of the whole porch and so cheap to replace.

We had an ikea matt inset into the floor at both front and back doors in our last house. It was great. We will be doing the same when we change the downstairs flooring in this house.

The trampa ones are 90x60cm (but they're all slightly different sizes).