Have you got underfloor heating under your tiled floor just to stop cold feet?

[Anotherbook]

We are keeping our radiators but having limestone floor in our kitchen/family room.

As ds will be playing on the floor and I'll be standing cooking I wondered whether some of the area we should have electric underfloor heating or just wear slippers as this adds to the cost and time/complication when laying the floor.

We have it under our wooden kitchen floor because we don't have the wall space for radiators in there. It is wonderful! Go for it.

we had it in our conservatory - as the main source of heating. we didn't have it in the kitchen (which the conservatory) is open to and really regret that - on winter mornings the kitchen floor is freezing and the conservatory lovely and warm - which is a pain when you have to go through the kitchen to get to the conservatory.
Ours was about £600 for a 3m x 3m room, but that was 5 years ago.

our only source of heating in kitchen too. Would be FREEZING in there in winter without it.

I like the idea of warm feet but dh is definately a fan of the slippers and save the money.

As we have radiators/fire to heat the room it does seem an extravagance.Also we have a rug in the family area but there is still alot of floor area potentially very cold in the depths of winter.

We wouldn't do the whole area though just parts which may in itself be rather strange especially as the stone will extend into the hallway.

The room is large as it is a knock through and extension so want it to be right as we envisage spending most of our time in here

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we kave had it put under our travetine floor in kitchen /garden room.
the kit including thermostat cost us £299 for 19m2. It didn't make much difference to the tile laying costs and the elctrics were just run off a near by socket.
It is fab in the morning when are plodding about in our PJ's.
By the way our room is 39m2 in total ,but you don't put the mats under any permanent furniture or fight up to the edge of the wall so need much less than your room size HTH

That was supposed to be right not fight

Because the room is newly extended/knocked through I'm not sure if the radiators (2 double ones) will be sufficient (there is a fire too).I suppose it is really to make the room cosy underfoot.

Is it expensive to run bearing in mind the cost of electricity nowadays (would be electric system) and the fact it doesn't heat up instantly?

I have not checked the cost in much depth, but I have not needed my radiators on at all in the room I have it in and at 10m x 4m it is fair to say I would normally have put tem on by now.
That would mean I am not incurring 2x heating costs.
Also only have set timer for 2hrs each morning as floor retains some warmth for a good while after is is switched off again.

Thankyou flossie64 and everyone else.I think we will probably put it in - if I can get Dh to agree.

You can get heaters that fit into the kickboards of your units so I've been told...they blow out warm air.

It's gorgeous - go for it. We have it in the sitting room and study under nice old tiles, with a real fire as the only other source of heat if needed. It's just wonderfully cosy and toasty I think.

We have radiators, and a real fire (rarely lit), and underfloor heating (electric) in our kitchen.

A warm floor first thing in the morning is bliss - it is on a timer and has been switched off all summer but will go back on tonight before the heating goes on - if I can stop DD constantly turning it off again .

If we could have had the plumbed kind I would have made it the only heat source, but we didn't have the room height to add another 1" to the floor IYSWIM.

Stone takes a long time to heat up but retains the heat well. Why not proper underfloor heating, instead of electric? Warning -limestone can be really porous so stains easily if food drops on it. Not always recommended for a kitchen

I think not proper underfloor heating because of the floor height /stage floor is at (have half listened to Dh about this).

Stealthsqiggle - that was my idea too!

RubyRioja - why do you never put yours on?

Peasoup - We have agonised over this floor..
We love the limestone but are aware it needs to be well sealed every couple of years and food particularly acidic needs wiping up really quickly.

Can't find a tile we like that looks enough like it.Wood likely to get dented/scratched and may not be suitable for kitchen area.Dh doesn't like vinyl/amtico etc.Friend has limestone with her dcs and this has been down 5 years and she says is fine as long as sealed.

Unless anyone can recommend something they have - is a white gloss kitchen with kashmir white granite worktop (grey ish)?

Hi Another- My floor has caused me much agony! Have you seen your mate's floor with the 5 kids? If so and it looks good then find out what sealant she used. We sealed it with one sealant and it still showed EVERY drip of food that my DS threw at it. Had it recleaned and resealed using a different product and still shows the stains though not in such a big way as it first did. TBH now it's going a bit grubby all over it doesn't look so bad as all the stains are merging into one darker coloured floor! That's what i tell myself anyway. It's kind of an old house so I'm thinking well old farmhouses have lovely slabs of limestone/yorkstone with hundreds of years of grime on them and they look good , so i think I'm going for that "aged" look! LOL It might wind you up if your house is the white minmal modern look though. Check out your friends house and if she's found a solution then copy it.

We have porcelain tiles which look just like limestone.

When is/was your deadline? I would have to dig through the file to find the source of the tiles as it was not my first choice - my first choice shipped dark (slate coloured) ones by mistake and gorgeous as they were they were all wrong for our kitchen and they couldn't replace them in time so the tiler had to source the replacements for us.

Worse thing we ever did in this house was have tiles laid without underfloor heating, there is no radiator in there either, and in the winter you can actually see ice on the floor by the cat flap

We had it put in when we had our bathroom done recently. It's a reasonably big bathroom with a high ceiling and a very large single-glazed window plus it's above the porch so it needs a lot of heating and the radiator is weeny.

Under-floor heating is brill and makes all the difference, love it, and it wasn't that expensive either.

Malory, why is underfloor heating wanky?

We had tiles in the kitchen. You have to wear slippers in winter. The kids hardly ever played on the kitchen floor, too cold. I did not want them to sit and play on such a freezing floor either.

try these people for limestone appearance without the maintenance - I think they are lovely and I am very picky - I rejected as naff the first 5 that the tiler tried to tell me looked like limestone

Thanks again everyone.

Limestone doesn't seem the way to go then with a still food throwing 2 yr ds.Yes, Friend's limestone does look good still and she says she doesn't regret getting it - her house is immaculate generally though despite her children.

I am fine about wearing slippers in the kitchen generally now but the fact we have joined into the family area is the reason for thinking of the underfloor heating.Want ds to happily play on the floor and the room to be cosy in the winter.

Have ordered some tile samples stealthsqiggle.

Tiler comes in 2 1/2 weeks so we are working to a bit of a deadline and I want to get my kitchen finished! Building work is just about done and granite worktop goes in on Friday.Delay in tiling because we got recommended a different tiler who came in cheaper than our original but we have to wait for him.

At least my dishwasher will be plumbed in again this weekend