If the unheated portion is in a place where I'd place my bare foot as part of my normal traffic pattern as I make my way around the room? To me that'd be something to gripe about. If it was in front of a vanity, a place where's I'd typically be stationary? That'd be completely unacceptable. I've refused to short cut mat or cable coverage, even when the homeowner has insisted that it'd be okay to do so. Because it never will be okay. They might accept the poorly heated floor with cold spots because they insisted on and agreed to it. But they'll never, ever be happy with it. If I were ever to shortcut a mat...which I won't...I'd not do it without the homeowner signing off on a very detailed "heated versus unheated" floor plan. In your original post you wrote that there is no heat on the floor within 18" of the vanity, right in front of a sink. To me, and to Suntouch, that's way out of bounds. In front of vanities Suntouch recommends the mat be right up next to the vanity. If there's a toe kick, it goes under the toe kick. So 18"? That's a battle to be fought between you and your sub who installed the mat. In my eyes, the homeowner wins on that one. How this is remedied? You could refund them the amount of the RFH back to the homeowner, perhaps even recouping a part of the money through the sub who installed the mat. That may or may not satisfy. You can keep things as they are and let it slide. You might end up with an ulcer. You can fix it from below.You can eat the cost of the new mat, the tile sub perhaps could compensate you for the cost of opening up and closing up the ceiling below the bathroom. Or you can bring the original tile sub back in and fix it from above. He supplies the labor at no charge. You can work out the materials cost as best as you can with the tile sub. There are options, none of them pleasant. I do feel for you. You sound like someone who builds with good intentions. You wrote that "Many of the issues are self inflicted, and come about in an effort from him trying to save money, which all come back to bite ME. Our profit margin is currently below our overhead costs, and there is no indication of it stopping here." That's a tough spot to be in. But if he's talking you into changing things along the way and you're not executing formal Change Orders as the plans and contract morph away from the original design and budget agreement? Again, I might be reading too much into this and making an erroneous assumption. But when I've had difficult clients, everything goes in writing. Every change to the original plan is a written change order, paid for by the customer before the change is made. If the payment isn't made before the due date specified on the change order, no change is made and for that portion of the project, work goes along per the original plan and the original contract. If the change order results in a cost savings, it gets deducted from the next disbursement notice. There is karma. There are the easy clients. Like the one a few years ago who deposited $900k in an account with my name on it and said "build me a house". Anyhow, I do wish you luck with this. You sound like one of the good guys who's been run over by a freight train. Might be time to put on your engineer's cap, wave a red lantern, and slow this guy down a bit.

All floor heating systems are not equal. If you read all the specs from various cable heat companies you will find a slight difference. Floor heat systems come in 240 Volt or 120 Volt systems. Some cables can be installed within 2" of others some need 3-4" of separation. Uneven floors can add extra setting material on top of low spots and this will affect the heat output. A well insulated room should be able to be heated with an in floor system but because of layout, local whether etc a second heat source may be needed. If possible a layer of spray foam to the underside of a subfloor will go miles in the way of making the new space warm and comfortable. Small spray foam kits are availble and local companies can fit in small jobs with little wait times. Call/email each of the companies selling floor heat and you will find helpful techs available. Ask them what the BTU output per square foot is for their cable and at what spacing their installations require. There are many online sites that can help you determine your rooms BTU requirements. Often a second baseboard style kick heater can be used in combination with the floor heat to heat the bathroom on the coldest day of the year. Good Luck

Ive installed Thermosoft floor heating mats several times in the past ( I am a contractor). I donÂt remember any problems with them, even with support. The first time I installed it 5 years ago at my friendÂs house in couple bathrooms and kitchen. It still works fine and he is very happy with his warm floor. Unfortunately, there are no systems in the world that are 100% fail-proof. Anything can fail. Even Toyota, which is one of the most reliable car manufacturers, has recalls... I did have several failures with Suntouch and Warmly Yours in the past, the same with Nuheat. And those are very expensive! I don't know why... But sometimes, the failure happens because of mistakes during installation, which is hard to admit... I had to fire one of my workers after I found that he dropped a very heavy tool on the heating wire, nicked it and continued installation... After such thing the system may easily fail after a few months in that spot... However, I would definitely stay away from Floorheatech ( who also works under easywarmfloor.com, heatingonline.com, heavenly-heat.com, etc). They got "F" in BBB for the reason and I truly had a very bad experience with them several times. I would also avoid Warming Systems, which is a very small company, buying their heaters somewhere in Eastern Europe without UL approval and mostly doing business on ebay... I hope this helps.

Can I get in on this conversation with a question? I have something similar in my 22 year old house. It is three stories. We do not have city sewer. We sometimes have a sewer gas odor that comes up the vents in two bathrooms only. They are exactly on top of each other. We have had a plumber out to the house three separate times. At first he said make sure to keep traps wet. We did that, smell sometimes comes back. He came out again, same thing and checked everything. Last time he said that all fixtures go into one large vent pipe on roof. Husband got up there and sure enough only one for 4.5 baths, washer, etc. The smell is only in these two bath areas. There is one bath below these two exactly as well. He said tub downstairs is not used much and trap could be dry. He extended the vent pipe up several feet in the air. He said sometimes when weather system moves in, it can hold gases down. We have absolutely no idea what this could be. It only happens every couple of weeks, but when it does, it smells so bad. We have also smelled this outside once or twice and it was so bad, I was so embarrassed. We were gone one week and our friends walked by the house to make sure everything was okay. They said they thought something BIG had died there and they actually walked around the back of the house but could not find anything. Please any thoughts. Desperate in NC