IMO there is no option a good choice for covering tiles and you will need to know where the radiant heat is in relation to the tile . Is this a concrete slab house or is the floor on a basement with the heaing running in between the joists ? More info for sure

You need to check with an HVAC contractor who's experienced with the type of system you have.

Its a concrete slab house. I am happy to provide any more info required, I am very new at this so didn't know what that would be.

Yesterday, I came across tile stickers. I don't know if that would work or not. I considered using a rug but the living area is open space of 24x20 and I don't know how I can break that up and not have the tiles show through. I will still def use a rug, but maybe just under the couch. So rest of the space is still a question.

First things first: The TYPE of infloor radiant heat is important. There is "hydronic" (tubes of water/oil/gel set INTO the concrete slab) or there is ELECTRIC (wires or mats that are covered with a little bit of thinset). This is where we START.

Do you have a 'boiler' for the heat? or do you have electric wiring? This is not always an indicator...but sometimes it helps.

Why am I asking? Because EACH one has it's own requirements and it's own allowances. What is allowed with HYDRONIC is rarely allowed with electric. Sigh.

Hydronic is the most expensive and the most efficient and the EASIEST one to work with. It allows area rugs without any problem. It can have the tiles REMOVED and a new floor put down in it's place (so long as the new floor is ALLOWED over infloor radiant heat - not all are).

The ELECTRIC systems are super finicky. As in, you sneeze and you lose an entire section of heat. I exaggerate but you get the idea. Many electric systems DO NOT allow large area rugs or thick area rugs. Many electric systems are too fragile to allow you to demolish the current tile. You can, but you also demolish the heating system as well. Which rarely works out, for anyone. And electric is a system that is really hard to get any flooring over top of (except for tile).

So...the TYPE of radiant tells YOU (because you tell us) what you are allowed to do with your flooring. My suspicion is you have hydronic. In a whole-home system it is used 95% of the time. But notice that 5%? Yah. Just in case you are the 5%, you still need to confirm what you have.

Go ahead and check and then tell us what you have. We'll wait.

Hello SJ,

You are right. It's hydronic. The inspector used IR cameras so we could see the hot water under. What are my options then? We don't have the budget rn to remove the tiles, so we need to figure out how to make it less ugly. Thank you so much!!

Darshna

Hey there! I am going through exactly the same situation now. May I ask you how you resolved the issue?

Me, too!

I have the same problem. The ugly tile runs throughout the house and we can’t even change the footprint of the kitchen if we can’t do something with the flooring. I’d love to lay new flooring over top, but will I get enough heat??

Radiant is designed with a certain heat transmission factor. Reducing that by installing insulating material over it can greatly reduce that heat transmission. It can also ruin the flooring installed on top of it. If you are going to install wood or vinyl, the tubing needs to be designed for that, from the beginning.

Thank you. It is a very old system that was installed when the house was build (1980s). Will any HVAC company be able to give me advice as to what flooring the system can handle?