Ceramic tiles are great, but as they’ve become more popular over the years, people are noticing one unwelcome characteristic. On a chilly winter morning, they can have you hopping… with cold feet.
So what do you do?
Well, you could simply put a small area rug wherever the floor is cold. Or you can try some other techniques. To keep it simple, you might want to concentrate only on the areas that really need it: such as in front of the bathtub or shower, in front of the bathroom vanity, beside the bed, under the desk in the home office.
If you’re ready to put in a new floor, you have the opportunity to install under-floor radiant heating now. These systems consist of either electric cables or water tubing which snake under the floor. Usually, they’re embedded in concrete, which is what actually “radiates” the heat up through the floor into the room.
These systems can be used to heat an entire house, but they’re also well suited to small areas, because they can be controlled by a separate thermostat or switch.
With both techniques, you can do a lot of the work yourself, but you may prefer to have a heating contractor deal with the source.
For hot water systems, you may be able to tap into your hot water radiator system, but you’ll need to lower the temperature of the water with a mixing valve. You can also install a separate boiler or hot water heater for the water. Heat pumps, solar heat and heat exchangers are other possible sources.