kitchen - floor - tiles what order ?

[Victoria Clare]

Planning new kitchen with slate or tiled floor with underfloor heating.

Lazily, we are not fitting it. Fitter people say 'do not worry about old kitchen, we will take that away', which sounds pleasingly relaxing and would involve minimum time spent kitchenless.

BUT, we also want to sort the floor, probably with one of those rather cunning electric heating mats underneath the slate/tiles (the room is otherwise unheated).

I understand that the heated bit doesn't go underneath the units anyway, but is there a downside to getting the heating mat and tiles/slates fitted round the units afterwards?

Can we get the electrician who's coming to sort the cooker to wire in the heating mat (and then just leave it rolled up in a corner till ready to do the floor), or should the mat be laid before it's wired in?

Apart from the appeal of not having to demolish the kitchen ourselves, we haven't 100% decided on slate or tiles yet. (May be easier to decide when the units are in place!)

Fitter people say: 'you need to remove the wall tiles'.

I've not had to do this before. Any tips?

(I have thought about tiling over/aquapanel/leaving them, but none of those really work - they are very ugly, chunky tiles, and we really need rid of them).

Victoria

[Christian McArdle]

The only downside is if you want to change the layout later. If the floor only goes up to the units, then you can't change the configuration. On the other hand, it is cheaper, as you are tiling less, and less disruptive. You should ensure that the height of the floor is taken into account when levelling the units, to ensure that kitchen appliances will still fit under the worktop when the floor gains an inch in height.

No don't do this. However, you can get the electrician to install and test almost all of the installation and wall controls, leaving you to just wire in the mat to the conveniently provided box when it is installed. That will be just like wiring into a plug.

An SDS chisel. Don't even think about using cold chisel and hammer, except to improve the comparison for when you do use the SDS. The SDS chisel makes it one of my favourite DIY jobs in existence. There is something really satisfying about pinging the things off the wall. Go in at an acute angle to the wall.

Christian.

[Andy Hall]

Yes you can. there is no need to tile under the units completely - only so that you go under the kickboards.

If you have freestanding appliance spaces then those should be tiled right to the back.

I would get the information for the heating mat ahead of time (even buy the stuff) and look at what is required for wiring and thermostat.

Then ask the electrician to make circuit provision for it and the thermostat but not connect the mat. You don't want it kicking around while the kitchen is being built or it will get damaged. It should then be wired immediately before laying the floor.

That would be a good idea. I would also buy a few of them and lay them in place for a couple of days and see if you like them.

An SDS drill is a good way, or you can do it with a bolster chisel and hammer.

Get rid of them......

.andy

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[John Stumbles]

What I've done is raised the floor under the work units & appliances by about 1cm (layer of wbp ply) so that when you're swabbing down the floor with a wet mop water doesn't run away under the units.

| wall | | | unit | | | |----------------- | || | foot || |_______________ \______________________ floor

Hmmn, bit more to it than that if the one I fitted is anything to go by: you need to strip and terminate coaxial ends and to check the continuity of the earth with a meter. Not rocket science but if you're not reasonably competent with electrics you might want to get it done by someone who is.

Seconded. Note you'll need the type that has 'roto-stop' for hammering/chiselling. You can get cheapos for £30-50 from B&Q etc, but they're big and heavy - you'll need arms like Arnie's to handle it (you'll end up with arms like Arnie's after using it for a while anyway :-). Or you can get lighter weight green Bosch machines from Argos and B&Q for about £100 with chisels & bits thrown in.