Home Depot tile heater

[miker]

The last time I was at Home Depot I saw an electric tile heater in the flooring section. It looks like you place a wire under the tile before you lay it down. The box also come with a little thermostat box to control it. My small bathroom has no heater in there now so this looks like the way to go. Has anyone tried it out? I would like to know before I spend the money.

Miker

[Pete C.]

Those are for foot comfort heating, not space heating. They work well for your feet as long as the room overall has some other source of heat. If you try to use them to heat an otherwise unheated room they will pretty much run all the time, not get the room to a comfortable temperature and cost a small fortune in electricity.

[Paul M. Eldridge]

Hi Mike,

I installed electric, in-floor radiant heating in my front hallway, den and ensuite bathroom and it's one of the most comfortable and flexible heating systems I know. The floors in these areas are slate and in the dead of winter they can be pretty darn cold without this supplemental heating.

The mats I selected are made by this company:

This is a picture of the accompanying thermostat control: A minor quibble, but these thermostats make a clearly audible "snap" when they cycle on and off. I believe they have been replaced by an updated model that perhaps addresses this problem; if this could be a concern, you may want to check this out before you buy.

For a bathroom, you might also consider a programmable version so that it turns on a few hours before you get up and automatically shuts off when you're done. Convenient and over the long haul it will save you money.

I believe their rated heat output is 12-watts per sq. ft., so a 2.5 by

5 ft. mat large enough to serve most bathrooms would draw just 150-watts. If you pay $0.10 per kWh and this mat operates an average of 4 hours per day, your cost-of-use is 6 cents per day (less if you subtract the cost of any heat it in turn displaces).

In my opinion, they're well worth it.

Cheers, Paul

[Joseph Meehan]

Well that does depend. They will do a lot to heat the room, but you need enough energy going in to do the job. Assuming that one low wattage (it may not seem low to the user, but it takes a lot of watts to heat a room) is going to heat an otherwise cold room, would be expecting too much.

They feel really good on the feet.