My only regret is that I ever put a porcelain tile floor in my kitchen. I hate that thing with a passion. Listen to your contractor! I have heated floors in my bathroom and love it. I'm also in PA. If you are determined to have porcelain tiles (why?), at least the heat would solve one problem which is how cold it gets.

We live on the frigid Canadian Prairies. Our house is unusual in that it is a slab home with hot water lines all thru the concrete floor. It was built this way in 1956 and used a boiler to heat them. We have since replaced the boiler with a newer type. Our friends love coming over here in winter because our floor is cozy warm. It creates a very steady heat that takes a long time to cool down or warm up more. Well, longer than a forced air furnace. In the summer when the heat is off, the floors are cool and help keep the house a bit cooler. Because it is a concrete slab, I do wear house shoes to save my feet, legs and back. But our cats love the warm floor and it is nice when you get up in the night or happen to be in bare feet.

Love our heated floors so much that when we did our bathroom renovation we put the heat on the floor, in the shower and onto the marble shower bench!

We have porcelain tile and my husband installed the electric system under the kitchen and bathroom floors. My only regret is that we tiled the laundry before discovering the wonderfulness of heated tile. Our kitty also loves the floor. Maybe we need a forum for cats and their floors, lol. And honestly, after cleaning up coffee grounds from my mini doxy's garbage can adventure today, I admit we are not a "kitchen hardwood floor" safe family.

FWIW, we put hardwood floors over warm board on the first floor of addition, and ultra fins under carpet of second floor.

I will never tile another floor without putting heat under it. In fact, I will likely tear out an existing floor and re-tile it to incorporate heat. Does that answer your question? :-)

They're addicting.

Dedtired, I have hardwood in my DR that I'm going to have to rip out due to a flood from the bathroom above, rain leakage through the bottom of the back door, and a cat with a firm belief that The World Is Her Litterbox. If I had hardwood in the kitchen, I'd be ripping that out too, due to floods from a dishwasher and a garbage disposal. Bathroom, DW, and garbage disposal have been fixed, and back storm door will be replaced, but the cat is staying, so I need something as close to waterproof as possible. Even if I liked the look of sheet vinyl or Marmoleum, which I don't, I'd still need a seam, which equals leakage potential.

What has made your life with tile so miserable? Hard, cold, or grout?

Not so far with our heated bathroom floor under porcelain tile.

Neighbors put it in and love it.

We love radiant flooring. We're in pa too and put in an electric one under bath porcelain tile during a small bath remodel. Absolutely no regrets. It works under hardwood, cork, etc.

Like everyone else we have no regrets. One of the best things we've done. We have engineered hardwood over radiant heat in the basement. I wish the whole house had radiant heat.

No regrets, except maybe I wish I had gotten wood-look tiles in my kitchen.

Right now, we have tile in the familyroom and rift-sawn site-finished oak wood floor over hot-water radiant heating.

Because of the wood, I can't crank up the heat as high as I like, which I can in the familyroom, which result in nice/toasty toes.

Even w/ rift-sawn, I don't want to risk damaging my wood floor w/ too high heating.

I love radiant heating.

It was a cloudy cold day in Mass. last week, and the room said 63degrees, but I was warm and toes were toasty. I used to have to crank the heat in the FR up to 70 to not feel cold, 73 to feel warmer.

Good luck,

Amanda

We're in northern PA and have hydronic radiant floor heat throughout our home. It is under hardwood and ceramic tile. I'd never even consider any other type of heat in the future. We can easily leave our thermostat a degree or two cooler and still be more comfortable than in our prior home, as there is virtually no fluctuation in the room temperature. Though a reflection of our insulation package and boiler efficiency also, this home is very, very inexpensive to heat.

When we remodeled we put radiant floor heat throughout our house. Along with replacing all the carpet with hardwood it was the best thing we did in the remodel.

Just how expensive are the operating costs for the electricity for a large floor with radiant heat, especially if installing on a concrete basement floor. Would a lot of the heat escape to the ground?

Our home uses a large Polaris energy efficient natural gas boiler that has an attached domestic hot water heater. Natural gas here is fairly inexpensive so our heating bills are very reasonable and not more than people with forced air gas furnaces. In our climate it is nothing to have some -30 and even a few -40 Celsius winter days.

We also have our radiant heat hooked up to a natural gas water heater. I'm not sure exactly how extensive it is, but I haven't noticed a change in our utility bills. We also got spray foam insulation at the same time we put in the radiant heat so we are more efficient overall.

Here's what I dislike about my porcelain tile floor: Grout that gets filthy and requires regular down-on-your-knees scrubbing (or hiring a grout cleaning service); so hard that I am sore from standing on it after long cooking sessions; ice cold (yes, get heat!); anything you drop smashes to smithereens or dents (I don't have a knife without a broken tip); grout and tile crack after awhile. I'd get just about anything but hard tile. But, to each their own.

I love the electric radiant heat under my kitchen tile. My only regret is that I didn't put it in my master bathroom.

Here's what I love about tile (mine runs from the back door through a bathroom, laundry room, front entry, kitchen, dining and office area.)

1. Its easy to keep clean. I vacuum several times during the week and stick mop once a week. Hand scrub once a year (the goal is more often, but you know...). SEAL the grout. I've resealed it twice in 11 years.

2. It still looks as good as it did when I put it in 11 years ago. No scratches, dents, scuffs etc.

3. It's indestructible. I've had one broken tile that they repaired and I can't even find the spot anymore.

4. I have a husband, four boys and live on a working dairy farm. No way I would put in anything that didn't hold up as well as tile.

Here's what I don't like: It's hard and the unheated sections are cold. (I have a concrete subfloor so no matter what flooring I put in it would be hard.) I just wear good tennis shoes on long kitchen days...

So Gotgoatmilk, have you ever figured out what the extra electric costs are for heating your floors in the winter? You could compare your electric bill for January to one in May or June.

I agree with dedtired about hating tile on a kitchen floor. I had a beautiful tiled floor in our kitchen and breakfast nook that we ripped out 5 years later because it killed me to stand on for any length of time. I like to cook and would be in agony after standing, even after buying specialty matts to stand on. We have hardwood now and it's made a world of difference. I can stand all day without any issues. And no grout to clean! We used to have a company come in to clean the grout, the floor was too big to get down on hands and knees to clean. The hardwood is so easy to clean, and some hardwood floors can be heated as well. I'd take care of the leaks and retrain the cat!

BTW, we do have a heated MB floor and love it.

We have a slab house with heated floor throughout. So the floor is hard, regardless what is on it. Long ago I started wearing a good supportive pair of slip on house shoes and it made all the difference. I can be on my feet all day whereas before I got bone spurs and aching feet. I also needed orthotics which I wear in those shoes all the time. If I was re-grouting the kitchen (and we will some day) I would use epoxy grout which is supposed to be smooth, not gritty like the urethane grout, and no need to seal it and very cleanable.

You are using tile, so this bit of info isn't helpful for you, but I'll share what we are doing for those of you who might be putting radiant under a wood floor but don't want it to be so hard from being on a slab. We are putting in a slab foundation, and then our wood floor will go over warm board radiant which will be on top of a little layer of wood sleepers. This SHOULD provide some give to the wood floor.

And yes Flamingfish, I think half the reason I'm getting radiant is for my cats too :)