How to install TempZone™ Floor Heating Cable under Nailed Hardwood Flooring

Hello, today, we're going to be talking about putting electric floor heating under hardwood flooring and what you need to do to accomplish that. So this house is a perfect situation because we're taking out an existing carpeted floor and we'll be putting in hardwood floor instead. But before we put the hardwood floor down, we're going to be installing electric floor heat. This type of heat is perfect for this type of space because this living room has a two story roof and a lot of the heat gets trapped up at the top of the room. So today we're going to show you how to get to heat in the floor to have more even heating throughout the entire space. All right. Now that we've cleaned the floor off and we've removed all the dirt and that sort of stuff, we're going to be priming this floor because we're going to be using the self leveling to cover up the heating wires. So whenever you use self leveling over a wood Subfloor like this, in most cases, whenever you use self leveling period, you'll need to prime the surface that is going to be covered with self leveling. So we have our primer over here and we're going to get started on priming this. And once it's primed and dry, we'll start putting down our sleepers, which are thin strips of wood that are 3/8 of an inch high and create the troughs that the wire will run back and forth in. OK, here we can see our sleeper's as are laying on the floor, you can see the sleepers are 3/8 of an inch thick because the wires are going to be running in between them. And we're going to fill this space with 3/8 of an inch of self leveling right up to the top of this sleeper. 

 So you have a nice flat surface all the way across the floor. OK, right now what we're doing is we're getting an idea where our sleepers are going to go. And when you do sleepers on a floor, you need to make sure that, first of all, you do a perimeter all the way around the room because the edges of the room all have to be the same height as the center. So not only are you putting sleepers on the floor, but you're also putting them around the perimeter. We talked to the hardwood flooring manufacturer. And this brand specified an 8 inch nailing pattern for this floor. So what we've done is we've set up our perimeter strips here and we are now going to be measuring 8 inches on center to each strip and we're going to get them set up. And then what we're going to do is we're going to make this mark all the way across the floor to make sure that it matches the installation plan supplied by WarmlyYours. Now we can see that our sleepers have been installed and the reason why the sleepers have been installed this way is because of the direction of the wood and the remainder of the house. There's a room right over there with the wood direction going this way. So we have taken a piece of wood here. We're running it in the same direction as in the other room there. So what we need to do is we need to make sure that we have something to nail into every eight inches as specified by this wood flooring manufacturer. If you were running the wood in this direction, you'd have nothing to nail it into. So you have to determine the direction of the wood and then make your sleepers in the exact opposite direction. Now, when you're putting the sleepers down, it's important to leave a gap at the end of every run. So if you look here, you can see we have about a quarter of an inch between each run of the sleepers that so the cable can root through and go around into the next section. So we always suggest that at each end of the floor to allow the cable to pass between the sleepers. All right, our cable fixing strips come in lengths of one foot, the space that we have in between here to nail is 8 inches. So we're going to need to cut these. So the easiest way is if you look at them, you have one side that hangs over a little bit and one side that's got a little open space. I always trim them both. So they are. Like that. And like that. So I take those extra spaces off each side and then I place it in here and I look for the spot that equals 8 inches. Cut it to length. And then it fits right down in the gap, and we have done that for every space, 8 inch space between the sleepers. 

 OK, we've got all of our cable fixing strips adhered to the floor. We used an air stapler to do that. So now that all of the cable fixing strips are in place on the floor in the troughs between the sleepers, it's time to lay out the cable. So here we are with our cable that's mounted on a spool and with the cable, we see that there is a cold lead, which is a non-leading portion of the wire. This is a black cold lead. It has the 240 volt sticker on it. It also has the data sticker on it that tells you what the voltage is, what the length is, how many watts, how many amps the product is. This cold lead is 15 feet long. So sometimes you'll have to cut this cold lead off to shorten it. So when it's sticking out of the box, when you do that, make sure that you take the label off and put it somewhere near the electrical box or somewhere near the customer or where the customer can find it so they can keep track of that. So what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and just kind of get this area started. And I'm going to take the cold lead off and we're going to find the factory splice. The factory splice is the area where we go from the heating wire to the non heating wire. And you can see that the splice is kind of thick. You need to plan for that. So you might have to take a little bit of the floor away or just maybe raise the thickness of the thinset just to make sure that you cover that area. So what we're going to do is we're going to kind of get this in place. It's very important that when you are putting either self leveling or thinset onto the system that you cover this entire slice with thinset or self leveling. It's a good idea to take this much area here and everything to the left of this should be covered in thinset. 

 You never want the factory splice to be in open air because it heats up. Now we're ready to go ahead and put in the first roll of heating cable, and I've cut out a spot here for the cold lead to go through and we're going to start the cold lead right here. And then we're going to put our factory splice about right in this area because we need to make sure that that factory splice is buried in the self leveling cement. Now we're ready to install our cold leads in the wall. We need to get them up into the wall first and then attach the circuit checks before we lay the cable out on the floor. So right now, I've got our cold wire and I've wrapped it to our two cold leads. And we're going to use this green wire to pull the cable up the conduit and out of the electrical box. Now that we've got the cold leads up into the box and out, we're going to attach our circuit, check to each one of the Cold leads. The circuit check is an alarm that will tell you if you happen to damage or Nick the wire while it's being installed. So now that we've got these wires here, we're going to attach these we're going to leave them on for the duration of the installation. We've begun stringing out the cable, we're using 3 inch spacing on this job, so we're going every third notch. All right, our first spool of cable has been installed and now it's time to install our second one, I've taken our digital ohmmeter, tested it and its good. So what I've done is I've run the cable out here, I've run the cold leads around the perimeter of this space behind me and run it up to the thermostat. So now we're ready to go ahead and start installing the second spool of cable. Now, you can see we have the cables down in between the sleepers, and another thing we've added is masking tape over the top. We've done that every two to three feet to help hold the wires in place, to keep them from moving closer or further apart. And we've also accomplished another thing, and that is to keep the wire from floating in the self leveling. All right, now we're in the room and we're ready to start doing the wood, you can see some of the wood is in and we've also done a skim coat on top of the self leveling. So now the self leveling in the skim code is the same height as the sleepers. That's going to allow us to use staples and this glue to go ahead and install the rest of the floor. If you take a look, you can see all the wood now is put down on the floor and we'll be ready to sand but before the sanding takes place. There are a few small gaps in the wood and those will need to be filled with putty first once the putty is put in a stride a little bit. There will be able to sand over this after the sanding is done. 

Then it's time to go ahead and put the stain down. OK, we have the floor completely installed. Now it's time to take the circuit checks out before we attach the wires to the thermostat. We're going to test them with an ohmmeter to make sure they're still good. And we're going to take these labels off and attach them down by the circuit breaker box so anybody in the future will know what circuit these floors are being powered from. OK, now we can see we have the power in the ground coming up from the circuit breaker box, we have our two cables and we have our thermostat sensor. All these will be attached to the back of the thermostat. Now that we're done testing the mats, what we need to do is we need to test the thermostat sensor to make sure it's good also. So I'm going to move the ohmmeter here from the 200 ohms range down to the 20 k range. And that's good. Here's our thermostat sensor wire. And this sensor wire has to come out through one of these holes in the faceplate. Now it's time for us to get this face plate into place on the double gang box. I've got a loose wire here. This is the thermostat sensor wire, so I'm going to end up getting that through one of these holes. But first, I'm going to put the faceplate over the wiring and the thermostat now that I've got it all connected. I'm going to get these on the down work side and then I'm going to run the little sensor wire through the whole. On the face plate, because it's got to connect to the base of the thermostat. Now we're ready to connect the sensor wire to terminals one and two and to put the face plate on. Now we've got plate and the power base for the thermostat. We've made our connection here for the thermostat sensor that goes axon terminals one and two. Now it's time to go ahead and put the face plate of the thermostat on. We'll go ahead and tighten the screw that holds it in place then its time to open the doors. And we're going to turn the unit on for the first time. All that's left now is the program, the thermostat, and we'll be ready to go. Now we're standing in the middle of this beautiful room. We have a beautiful brand new hardwood floor that's been installed. And as long as you follow certain steps, you should have no problem getting your floor installed. The first thing you do is you give us the dimensions of the area. Then you tell us how many inches apart the wood floor must nail down. If it was nailed down, then we take that information in which direction you want the wood to flow in the room. You tell us that and then we will give you a plan that shows how to lay that out. So if you follow those simple steps, you'll be on your way to having a great hardwood floor installed in your room. So check us out any time you can www.WarmlyYours.com