I have Advantech in my new home under construction in the mid-atlatnic region and I can attest to it's durability and non absorbtion qualities. Before they got the roof on my house, we had a very bad winter storm and my library had a small pond in it. The Advantec was so tight - very little of the the water dripped into my basement. Then it froze and we had an ice rink. After the thaw and evaporation - you can't tell that there was water on it. No sweaks, no damage. The product is great for hardwood applications because you don't have to worry about mositure content differences between the wood and the subfloor. You still have to acclamate your wood planks - but the subfloor will not have moisture in it. If you can't get a comparable product or the T&G wood you want - I would recommend Advtantec

My husband and I installed a floating wood floor in our house -- about 1000 square feet. Yes, it took a long time, but it was actually not very difficult. Just time consuming, especially with having to fit it in on the weekends and evenings. We had friends who did a floating laminate floor, and they also had no difficulty. Really, once you've laid a few rows, it becomes pretty mindless. Just make sure you do a lot of reading beforehand, and do the required prepwork. I would imagine doing a glue down or nailed floor would be rather more difficult. I don't know what option is best for a radiant heat floor -- you will need to do some research on it. My husband and I have done a lot of tile in our house as well -- the front entranceway (slate; I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. We didn't do as good of a job as we should have), a bathroom floor (easy), and the bonus room floor (400 sq feet. Time consuming, but again, not difficult). We bought a cheap wet tile saw at Lowes, and have used it every time we've tiled. It's held up surprisingly well, considering it cost less than $100. I'll be frank and honest (and I'm sure some of the contractors on this board won't like hearing this), but we've had better work done when we've done it ourselves. Nearly every contractor we've worked with has done a shoddy job; they were not detail oriented, cut corners, and generally did just sloppy work. And these were people that we investigated fully, got references, etc. and we never went with the cheapest option. We've decided that we would much rather do whatever work possible when we can, because a) it's cheaper, and b) we can do it to our specifications. If you are detail oriented yourself, do the proper research, and follow instructions, there's no reason you can't do the work yourself -- frankly, it's not rocket science.* My husband and I are computer programmers, and we bought our first house 5 years ago, which give you an idea of how much home renovation experience we have (until we bought our house, none!) * The exception being electrical or plumbing work. We never attempt any of that ourselves.

I do recommend the Noble Drain on occasion to my clients. I have a current client in the US now doing a slope subfloor and Noble FreeStyle Drain. Here is a drawing I worked on two months back What I have learned over the years is that the ease of cleaning these drains is key. The linear drains from many company's have raised grates. This leaves the thin-set and grout open to every shower. This gets nasty in time. Drains from Laticrete, Noble, Proline and Schluter are all much like this. On my current steamer I had a Kerdi Line drain to deal with. So I tweaked it some and framed it. This will improve the maintenance of the shower drain I think and make the Kerdi Line drain more like a ACO Plain Edge. I do not think water is migrating to the drains like we are led to believe. I have been design my showers with improved weep hole and weep channel technology. Lots of theory - not a lot of showers to study. So far my initial builds with my new design are showing great success and looking pretty. Ditra Heat. Wow - I can not go there. I think you will see this product off the shelves in less than five years. You will never see it in any of my builds. When you study the cross section it contradicts everything we where pitched about Ditra. That with the restrictions in the wire choice and thin sets and you have really dog of a sku in my mind. I would not use it. When you plan your wet zone plan on slope outside thew shower back the the shower 4"-6". Plan a capillary break if you think my style (adopted from the Aussies) is worth it. Plan on 1 1/4" of grade change to the top of the drain grate. Skip the tile insert grate for added safety and skip the hair strainer at the same time. I have helped a lot of people plan these showers. Most of the key planning is in the tile layout and material selection. This past year I have recommend mostly ACO drains but have on certain jobs recommended Schluter, Noble and Quick Drain USA. It depends what the hurdles are. It is this reason why the first five years I was diligent about working with and understanding all the drains and their limitations. No one online to my knolwledge has installed anywhere close to the number of drains I have. Lots of men have opinions. But I always wonder where they take their data from. Me - I have learned the hard way. In the field. Building these showers. it does not take much research on the subject to see most men talking about have maybe installed one or two. And then they are the expert. When heating a shower floor we always add the waterproofing over the heating. Not under it. Ditra would not be wise choice. To get the best heat transfer you need to do a little creative planing and design the shower like a divot method. This gets tricky and to do this I would be recommending a NobleFlexFlashing and standard drain. Then you could do something like this job. The picture below shows a heated shower floor. The tile edging is Pro-Parts by Butech. I call this a Kwaywk Style shower Drain. Rod Kwawk is one of the Countries top installers and I was inspired to do this build after following his work for many years. In order to achieve the grading with a regular point drain and large format tile I used a medium bed thinnest from Ardex. X32. The drain is by california faucets and comes with a powder coated cast iron rough in. Sexy. Good Luck.

Did you end up going with these floors, and if so, are you happy with them and do you have any pictures? We just chose these for our bedeoom, but can only find the pictures on the manufacturer’s site.