ProtectoWrap Peel and Heat

[Dick in Wisconsin]

We're replacing floors in our house and want to heat the floors in the bathroom and kitchen.

Our contractor is recommending ProtectoWrap Peel and Heat. He has limited experience with it (mostly on concrete floors).

http://peelandheatcomplete.com/

I've watched the video, understand the theory behind it, and appears to probably save a day (don't have to wait for the first layer of thin set to dry for a day).

From the ProtectoWrap pitch ... I like it. But I'm not an expert on this stuff and would like input from the pros.

Anyone using it? Anyone look at it and decided against it?

 

[Dick in Wisconsin]

Huh. Lots of looks and no comments.

 

[larry4406]

No experience with this but looks like a pretty slick system. I wonder how custom size bathrooms are addressed? Special order of certain mat sizes and shapes? The FAQ says that the mats can't be cut so not sure how to address irregular room sizes.

 

[Dick in Wisconsin]

No experience with this but looks like a pretty slick system. I wonder how custom size bathrooms are addressed? Special order of certain mat sizes and shapes? The FAQ says that the mats can't be cut so not sure how to address irregular room sizes.

My contractor and I have had the same discussion. My contractor says the
mats shouldn't be more than 3" or 4" apart. If more than that, there will be cold spots in the floor.

I was hoping that tile floor guys with tons of experience could critique Peel and Heat whether they used it or not. Also guys who have used it in hundreds of installs and whether they had any trouble with it.

 

[matt_i]

I built a tile floor with SunTouch electric radiant mats.

Slightly different product as the resistor was woven thru the mat in a sine-wave shape, and it could be cut apart just as long as the resistor element wasn't cut.

I had immediate issues with running the electric wires back to the controller, as they weren't nearly long enough to go up and over. I had to put in junction boxes on almost every wall.

The difference in heating between mat and no-mat was very obvious to me. I put them around the toilet, hoping to keep a person's feet warm if they sat down but the warm vs ice-cold area behind was very easy to discern. Also I didn't put them in the kneehole under a sit-down cabinet and that was a mistake as it was always cold under there, despite being ~12" from the mats.

That said, I didn't use the heat like you are probably supposed to, running it 24x7 off a thermostat. I built my own relay logic box with a 7 day timer to fire up the tile floor about 4 hours before people got up for the day, in order that it be warm, then shutoff automatically later in the day. There was a selector switch in the closet which had ON-OFF-AUTO modes, the ON being constant, OFF for vacations and AUTO using the 7 day timer. The thermostat was always in control, just the "call for heat" signal was inhibited by the timer output.

I didn't live there long enough to figure out if the thermocycling had any effect on the tile bond, and thus if the energy saver mode I designed was ultimately worthwhile. The isolation mat feature of the product you linked sounds like a good idea.