New construction Kfw70 underfloor heating and tiles

Hello everyone,

currently we are taking a closer look at the question: Which floor coverings for which room.
We have often read here that tiles do not really get warm anymore with modern underfloor heating. That would be a reason for us to largely avoid tiles.
What are your experiences with this? Can/should one pay attention to details when installing the underfloor heating or selecting the tiles so that you end up with foot-warm tiles?

Thank you very much in advance.

Best regards milkie

Oh, I'll jump on this. I'm very interested in that too. I like warm feet. And I would like to have floor tiles with warm feet in our new build. I don't like wearing shoes (not even slippers!) and prefer to walk around in socks. There is nothing worse than cold feet tiles.

I'm still wondering how you manage to get a pleasant indoor climate in a new build if you want the underfloor heating to be comfortably warm. Is it better to forego thick insulation so that the rooms don't get boiling hot?

Hello you two,

so we moved in in May and also had underfloor heating installed with tile laying. We have now turned on the heating, the floors in the bathroom are very warm (well, here you simply need a different base temperature than in the living/dining room). In the living and dining area the tiles are not cold but also not toasty warm (I also belong to the faction "slippers are unnecessary, I walk barefoot"). So far it has been possible to do without slippers without any problems. And when I am in the basement I naturally notice that the tiles there are much colder than in the living room. Therefore, I can only recommend tiles and underfloor heating in a Kfw70 house.

Best regards, Naddl

Hello girls,

We also have underfloor heating with tiles. In recent weeks, it has been a balancing act figuring out how to set the thermostats to noticeably warm up the tiles. If I set the thermostat to 4, and the hallway to 2, you can feel the difference. But we have a fireplace for the cozy in-between time, so the setting of 2 is enough for room warmth, which makes the tiles cooler, not cold (but not exactly pleasant when standing in the kitchen).

I had a new experience: for two weeks now we have had our bamboo parquet in the “3rd” room on the ground floor; there is an incredibly noticeable difference compared to the tiles: the hallway tiles, as already mentioned, are relatively cool, which I found very unpleasant yesterday because I often went through the hallway to outside (putting up winter decorations), then quickly made a trip in socks to our 3rd room... that was really nicely pleasant for the feet. But I also remember this year’s winter when we moved in. The temperatures were lower than what we have now (around 5 degrees now), and the tiles were warm!

We personally are barefoot walkers, like it around 22 degrees + in the living area, because we hate feeling cold… If you want it around 20 degrees (due to hot flashes or similar), the tiles may feel cool.

Upstairs we have carpet. It is always very nice on the feet there, even though we only heat for the house there, so it stays colder.

As a builder, I generally advise making sure that the heating pipes are laid normally close together everywhere.

Regards Yvonne

I would not necessarily want to do without tiles. In the kitchen, the hallway, and the bathrooms, we have tiles and they already feel warm (our thermostat is set to 3). But even on the laminate in the living-dining room, I have warm feet and can feel the underfloor heating.

In summer, I found the cool tiles very pleasant.

We are also still facing the choice between tiles or parquet/laminate. I would like to have one covering from the open kitchen through the dining area to the living room. However, I am also concerned that it might be a bit cold on the feet in summer and during the transitional seasons if tiles are laid everywhere. Therefore, at the moment I am leaning more towards parquet or laminate. I am hoping to hear some experiences here.