I moved from the Rio Grand Valley to the Texas Hill Country about 6 years ago. My house is on a slab on top of huge slabs of limestone, and I have ceramic tile in the main part of the house and the bathrooms. The three bedrooms are carpeted.
The big surprise for me was the fact that the tile floors on a slab emit cold, cold temperatures in the winter. I had to put an area rug under my computer desk to keep my feet and legs from getting too cold. I also began to use a small ceramic space-heater to direct heat under the desk.
I have heard of people in the Hill Country having nothing but tile in their homes. How in the world do they survive? I think it would cost too much to put down all heated floors when new homes are built.
Do builders and architects inform/warn their clients in cold areas that they will have very, very cold floors in the winter?
The cold/cool floors are OK during the hot Texas months though. They “may” even save a bit on air conditioning bills.
Best regards,
D
Tom: Turn the heat on, put some slippers on. It’s Texas and …
Charlie: And man up.
Tom: You know, it’s funny. We go up north and we put on jackets, parkas. We put squirrel skin on our heads, we do all kinds of stuff. Down here we want to walk around naked in the house.
Charlie: But there really is nothing you can do.
Tom: No, and it’s a beautiful floor. You can put down throw rugs, which will make it more comfortable. If you ever built a new home, if you tend to be sensitive D is probably sensitive for some people.
Charlie: It is. I can tell you it is.
Tom: A radiant floor heater underneath there for those short times of year in the Hill Country a little bit more than the Houston area, they do work wonderful. Then it would radiate beautiful heat through the tile and you would love it, so if you’re sensitive and you’re building a new home, and we did a lot of them in master bathrooms because that’s where people tend to have no shoes on.
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