The Complete Guide to Heating Luxury Vinyl Tile

Hello. Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Lynn. I am a customer service representative here at warmly yours.

Today, I am joined by. My name's Scott. Hello, everybody. Awesome.

So today, we're gonna be going over really the complete guide to heating underneath LVT. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask either in the sidebar chat or at the bottom of the screen. If we don't see them right away, we'll definitely get questions by the end of the presentation today? Yeah.

And if you're watching on Facebook live, just go ahead and put the live chat in there. We have our assistant, Olivia, she'll be keeping an eye on that too.

Awesome. Yes. So starting out, we're gonna go over floor heating and kind of just some general information on our floor heating project or products. Then we're gonna go over an example project where we used our floor heating cable will go over the full installation process, and then at the end, we'll also touch on the cost breakdown as well.

So LVT is obviously becoming a very popular flooring type. It gives you the look of a lot of other more expensive materials without the associated cost, and it's also incredibly durable. So these can last anywhere from twenty to twenty five years, their scuffs, stain and scratch resistant, So they tend to be really good types of flooring, and that's also why they're becoming just so popular in the construction industry.

So, Scott, can you kind of tell us what we're looking for when it comes to a floor heating system for underneath LVT?

Yeah. You're looking for something LVT has a lot of rules.

Excuse me. A lot of rules that need to be followed when you're installing LVT that make it different than laminate.

It it it and because of that, there's a different way to install it than laminate. A lot of people think you install this product the same as you do laminate, but you don't. It's a different product, and it installs differently.

So with this particular product, You have a couple of rules with it. One of them is a flatness requirement.

And one of them is specified in the instructions that heating system should be a half an inch away from the the LVT itself. So the way the way to do that is to put the temp zone flex roll, which is normally used for tile, to put it under a half inch layer of self leveling cement And that way, you accomplish two things. You get the distance between the LVT and the wire that is required.

And second of all, you get the flatness requirement.

And those things are both met And we can also comply with the maximum temperature that many companies specify because our thermostat has a sensor that actually gets embedded into the floor so we can keep track of that temperature all the time. So that's what keeps you in the warranty period or in the warranty requirements of your particular product. If you're interested in a product, make sure you look through the installation manual.

The installation manual will tell you about maximum temperature flattness requirements, how flat it needs to be installed, if there's any requirements with radiant heat, and that's all going to be in the installation manual. And we had one question sent in to us ahead of time. And that question is from Rick Rick asks, what if the manufacturer doesn't warrant their floor over floor heating?

Well, the answer to that is find one that does. Because you definitely if you are very concerned and you want that warranty coverage, There are plenty of LVT companies that do have a that will warrant their product as long as you follow the maximum temperature, as long as you follow the flatness, and as long as you follow the distance from the heating. So that's why you cannot use our environment flex roll, which is usually placed directly under laminate. So the laminate would rest directly on the environment flex roll.

The problem with the environment flex roll, you can see the ridges of the wire. But the laminate you don't have to worry about that because the laminate doesn't laminate doesn't conform to that. It doesn't do what LVT does. And that's what's so great about this particular slide here.

We can see LVT has a a feature I don't know what to call that other than a feature called drape.

And drape means that it starts to conform to whatever's under it. That's where the flatness requirement comes from. If you literally took this piece of LVT, and put it over our environment, which has the ridges in it. Over a few years, you'd start to see the ridges actually working their way through the LVT because the LVT is draping over the top of it and it's conforming to what is underneath it.

So that's why the big difference is between laminate and LVT is this slide right here. This is why you don't use environ under your LVT, it's why you encase temp zone product in self leveling to make sure that that LVT conforms to the flat surface. So hopefully that answers a bunch of questions because we get the same questions Lynn does. Same questions every day about LVT.

I wanna use this LVT within Byron. Because environments are very easy installation.

If they wanna use environment, then they should use laminate or engineered wood. LVT is not the same product, then that's where that's where we come up with this.

Absolutely.

So if you're looking at picking out a LVT product to heat underneath, then you're going to want to find one that has no or a very minimal backing. So you want the whole plank, the assembled plank to have an r value of less than one, so that that heat can really transfer properly.

And as we kind of touched on earlier, talk with the manufacturer about their warranty and their requirements when working with.

Electric heating and their product, make sure it's compatible, find out the maximum temperature, and any requirements that they have.

Yeah. The main thing you're going to want to look for is a maximum r value of r one. If you have an LVT plank that has a really thick pad on the back and the r value of that product is less than one, then that's your major goal. Is the r value.

Sometimes, especially back in the old days, LVT manufacturers didn't know what the r value of their product was. So they would just we would just say, hey, you know, you've got to use the product with the with the least amount of backing because backing usually is made of cork or foam or something like that, and cork and foam usually are an insulator, and will keep the heat from getting to the floor surface. So that's where the r value comes from.

Absolutely.

So looking at the system, when you first receive it and throughout the entirety of the installation process, you wanna be sure that you are testing it. Especially since it will be going underneath concrete, You wanna make sure obviously that you're installing a working system. So, Scott, can you kinda tell us what materials we'll need to test the system and make sure that it's working? Yeah. You should order the circuit check when when you get your product because the search circuit check is going to monitor the wire while you're working over it. You're going to test the product with a digital ohmmeter before during and after the installation.

But the circuit check is your eyes and ears because it's going to keep track of the wire while you're putting the meter down and you go work on the product, it's going to keep track of you get if it gets damaged, if it gets dinged, if it gets shorted, anything like that.

To do this installation, you are going to need to get a digital ohmmeter. And the digital ohmmeter you want is one like this. If you look real closely, it has a dial on the front and you may or may not be able to see that. But in the ohms You want one that displays zones, and you want a digital one.

You don't want one of those analog things from nineteen fifty two with the needle that goes back and forth. They're very very difficult, if not impossible to use. But what you want is one of these where you can set the range for two hundred in the ohms section. So you're looking for an ohms section on this meter that's got four or five different selections, not just ohms.

Because if you see one that has just ohms, That's a self ranging meter. And those are very difficult to use for installations and for troubleshooting, especially. You want to find one that has ohms and it has two thousand twenty thousand two hundred because your flooring, ninety nine percent of your flooring is gonna be tested at the two hundred range. And your flooring sensor gets tested at the twenty k range.

Now your your self ranging meter may see the two hundred range, but we get a lot of calls from people who go My my my flooring test good, but I can't read my meter. My my meter testing the sensor. I'm getting zero. Well, it's because they have an auto ranging meter that hasn't found that twenty k range.

So you have to press the range button over and over and over and over if you have one. So go out and get a digital ohmmeter that has a selectable ohms. They're usually under twenty dollars at any big box store, and that's the kind that you want.

Awesome. Definitely good information to have.

So looking at an example project, we're gonna go over a project that had a wood subfloor with they use Temsewn cable. And starting out, you'll want to get a smart plan like the one on this next slide. As you can see, it actually shows you every step of the installation process. It shows you where you'll be starting and ending the cable as well as Scott, can you kind of tell us about that red dot on the drawing?

Yeah. That red dot represents the midpoint of the cable. And when you get our cable, there'll be a white piece of tape at the halfway mark. So if you have a three hundred foot cable, you'll see a white dot on it at one hundred and fifty feet.

That's the halfway point. And we do that. So you don't lay this out all the way across the room until you get to the final to the very end and go, oh, geez, I've got ten extra feet, or I've got twenty extra feet. That allows you to find your halfway spot And if you're right on target halfway through, you know you're going to be fine for the installation.

However, if you've used up all your all your cable and you're only halfway there, you know that you've spaced it wrong. And usually, that's when people space it at two inch spacing instead of three. Because this design if you take a look at your smart plan, it shows you there's a triangle here with a t with with a number one. That's the beginning point.

And then there's a square here, which is the endpoint. So your cable starts here, and then it goes back and forth, in these cable fixing strips all the way across the floor. Here's our halfway point, and here's our thermostat. Now we always want you to tell us where the thermostat is so we can start the product near it.

If you have a thermostat located in the upper right hand corner We are going to redesign this so the start is over here, not down here. So that's why it's so important when you're sending your sketch to us is of label where you want the thermostat to be because your design will be based on what you tell us. So that's why We will be glad to do this redesign for you. We'd redo them very quickly.

Same sometimes the same day, but usually overnight at the latest.

And also, if you look here, it'll tell you what the spacing is. So each one of these little knobs if we take a look here, each one of these little knobs is one inch. So the cables spaced the the the things are spacing one inch on center. So you would just use three of these little spacers between each wire run.

There's there's your three inch spacing. So it tells you what that is. It also tells you what type of breaker you're going to need, and it's going to tell you how many amps it is, what your total wattage is, and all that information is located down here at the bottom. Also, if you take a look at this real quick, if you look in this area and right here, you can see five and three quarters.

That's the distance of the fixing strip from the wall.

If you decide on your own, oh, you know what? I'm going to put this fixing strip one foot away from the wall instead of five and three quarter inches, you're going to have way too much cable. And if you put this fixing strip right up against the wall on both ends, You're not going to have to get it. You're not going to have enough cable to get to the end.

So those are the things that you wanna check because we'll tell you where the fixing strips get attached on this side. And will also tell you where they get it fixed on this side. And that way, your spacing will lead to the entire space of your floor getting heating heated. So one other thing we talked about oh, we haven't talked about yet is is here in the closet.

We did not we did not heat in the closet because the national electric code prohibits heating closet. If you're in Canada, they do allow it.

If there's a control inside there. But the national electric code in the US does not allow if you're interested in heating your closet for some reason, talk to your local code authority, they will tell you whether they will allow it or not. But the national electric code does not. So that's what a smart plan looks like and what it tells you, information down here, installation plan up here, and that will be a very, very good thing for people that have never done this before.

We offer these drawings for free and you usually have them the next day. So instead of trying to figure it out yourself, especially with complex rooms and different shapes, our engineers do it every day every day of the year. So just let us figure it out for you and we'll do that because it's hard for beginners or even experienced people say, Okay. I need this big of cable here.

I need this big of cable over there. Just let us figure it out. We'll do it for you. And we'll do it quickly.

So looking at preparing the subfloor, you wanna first make sure that the type of LVT that you're gonna be installing is designed to go over the subfloor type that you'll be installing over. So then from there, once you've double checked, make sure that you prime it and then it's completely level and to clean of any dust or debris before beginning the actual laying out of the heating product.

Yeah. I love this piece of tape down here at the bottom of this picture because we actually had to put a piece of tape over a a hole in the floor because if we didn't do that, all the self leveling would run right into the basement. And that's the last thing that you want. So you have to plug these holes.

We also put calk all the way around the edges of the walls because it will run down the walls if you don't let it. You'll also want to put a dam around any floor vents you know, half inch dam around that to keep the the self leveling from flowing into the vents. We've had people do that before. So please remember to do that.

So those are the things you want to do. How do we know what type of primer to use, or do we know if we need to use primer? It says right on the bag of self leveling. This product requires such and such brand primer.

And that's what you wanna do. Also, it will tell you how long it'll take to cure. Not dry. It'll tell you how long it needs to cure because cure takes longer than drying.

So that's another thing you want to look out for.

Also, your LVT manufacturer is going to tell you what the maximum humidity or or water content of that self leveling needs to be. It needs to be dried to a certain amount before you put anything over it. So especially the LVT. So the LVT will say, install on subfloors with a, you know, relative humidity or or or moisture content below a certain percentage. So you also have to think about that before you put that in.

Absolutely. Yeah. There's lots to think about, and that is why we're here for. So if that's overwhelming at any point, just reach out to us and we can always help you figure out what you're doing.

So looking at this, I really like this picture, the cross section. You can see how every step of the installation is on. You start out with laying down your fixing strips, putting down your temp zone cable, kind of in that serpentine pattern, hooking them into the fixing strips, taping the cable to the subfloor so that it doesn't float up in the self leveling. And then again, that self leveling and the LED over the top.

Yeah. One thing you need to remember, we we've heard a lot of sob stories over the years when it comes to self leveling.

And that is that the cable is going to try to float to the top of it. No. So what you do, that's what the masking tape is for. The masking tape is simply to hold it down long enough for the self leveling to become solid because the self leveling is so dense that anything below it's going to try to float to the top.

And that's why you put these masking tape runs every couple of feet. Because it each if you look real carefully, you'll see it it kinda raises a little bit every two feet. If you didn't put it at there at all, it'd go right to the top. And then what do you do?

Is you have to wait for it to get hard and then pour another level of self leveling over that. And now all of a sudden your floor has gone up so high. Instead of a half inch, you're now at three quarters or even more. So that's why it's so important to make sure that that cable stays attached to the subfloor.

Absolutely. So speaking of which, this is a lot of this is actually information we've touched on already. But again, make sure that the fixing strips are attached to the subfloor. You can use this, you know, whatever's easiest, screws, concrete nails, double sided tape.

I hear different people have different luck with you know, different types of fixing it to the subfloor. So that comes down to A pneumatic stapler works great. Yes. That one, I think, tends to be the easiest and Scott would know he's done a lot of these installations.

So from there, you'll wrap the cable around the fixing strips as shown earlier.

Making sure that you're aware of that halfway point on the smart plan to ensure that you're actually running it in the correct spacing.

And, obviously, again, if there's questions on that, take a look at the smart plan, and it'll show you every step of that installation.

And then at this point, you'll also want to install your floor sensor. So these are found in the thermostat box, all of our thermostat do come with a complimentary four sensor. So be sure to grab that from the thermostat box and install it at least six to eight inches into an open loop. So this is, you know, a a loop that is not going to be touching the cable you don't want it ever running across the heating cable or too close to it, you want it to be also run-in a separate conduit from the cold leads for the heating element itself.

Yes.

There's a couple reasons behind that. One of them is that it's usually against code to put a low voltage wire in the same conduit as a high voltage wire thermostat sensor is a low voltage wire. And a lot of mistakes I see by people as they try to run the sensor out into the middle of the room. All you have to do is you just have to get a six to eight inches into the heated area.

It needs to be into the heated area. It can't be along the edge of the wall. Because it'll never see the heat because the heat only radiates an inch and a half laterally from the cable. So you can't put the sensor between the cable and the and the the wall because it's not the heat's not gonna get over there.

Also, when you're placing your sensor, you want to also place the sensor in an area where the sun doesn't hit the floor. Because in the middle of the afternoon, that sun, and sometimes people put the sensors out in the middle of the floor, which they shouldn't do anyway, But the the sun will come in. It'll warm that spot of the floor. And now the sensor goes, hey, this floor is ninety degrees.

I don't need to turn on when the rest of the floor is fifty. So That's why you always wanna put the sensor where the sun is not going to hit it, and it because it'll it'll get tricked. So What a lot of people do is they'll say, okay. I'm going to give this spool of cable to the installer.

I'm going to give them the fixing strips. I'm gonna do that. But I'm gonna hold on to the thermostat so it so it doesn't get lost. Well, they just created a cardinal sin because they didn't open the sense the thermostat box to take the sensor out and give it to them too.

So whenever you get that thermostat, take it out of the box, the sensors behind it in a coil, take it out and give that along with the spool and along with the cable and and all that other stuff. Give that and then hold on to the thermostat. But you always have to give the sensor because it's very time consuming and arduous to get it installed after the the the product has been installed. So those are just some hints when it comes to thermostat sensors.

Absolutely. And that's something that I think is often overlooked, so definitely good to get that information out there. So looking at an example project where a concrete subfloor is installed with a or is already installed. Is going to be having a Temestone Flex role installed over the top of it.

And we'll show you a smart plan for this It looks a little bit different, obviously. You can see where you're cutting and turning the mat instead of just running the cable back and forth. So you'll actually see, Scott, can you kind of go to the next slide so we can compare the drawing? There we go.

So This is the actual room itself, and then this is the drawing that we received or that we sent back to the homeowners. You can see the layout plan of the cutting and turning for the mats. So you do wanna make sure that again that you're preparing that subfloor really well. That it's going to be flat and level, that it's clean, and that the LVT is designed to go over that concrete subfloor.

And then from there, you'll want to install an underlayment.

Yeah. Take a look at this drawing. You can see, along the top, there's a nine inch gap here, a seven and a half inch gap. There's a ten inch gap over here. We usually don't heat right up to the edges of the walls.

We usually heat eighty percent, something like that, eighty five percent, ninety. It all depends. The reason why is nobody ever stands here. So if no one's ever going to stand on that part of the floor, you don't need to install a heat there, especially if it's just comfort heat. If it's not a prime source of of your heat in your room. If you're thinking about doing this type of product as a sole source of heating, there's no vents, there's no there's no other type of heat in the room. Then you should get a heat loss calculation done to make sure that our product will supply enough BTUs to heat that space.

But you can see that we've not heated the perimeter, and here's our beginning spot, here's our end spot, Here's where our thermostat is, and down here it's going to tell us what the wattage is, what size breaker to use, trying to tell us what the amperage is. All that information is located down here. Right here, it tells us what the product is that's installed And you can see there's a one in a circle. If you look here, it coincides with the one in the circle. So this is what an installed plan a smart plan looks like when it comes to doing this type of product with LBT.

Awesome. So talking about the underlayment, we're gonna look at a dry or layout plan show or not layout plan. What's the word? I'm completely blanking cross section. Mhmm. There is a really good cross section that's coming up showing the different steps when doing a concrete slab.

But looking at Scott, can you go to the next slide? I don't want to yet. Okay. Because Please. By all means, But because of the one thing, the middle the middle paragraph here, if the floor isn't level -- Yes. -- level it first.

And this is especially true. Maybe not with with concrete, but in older houses that are a hundred plus years old where the walls are here in the floor sags in the middle between the spans of the wall. The problem is if you put the heat directly on the subfloor, the spot in the center will be three inches deep, and the spot on the edges will be a half inch deep. And the middle of the floor will be cold and the edges will be nice and warm.

So as soon as somebody tells me, I've got a floor that's really cold in the center, but it's really hot on the edge. That tells me they're probably in an old house with a sagging floor and they didn't level it first. Because what you wanna do is you wanna level it first then put the heat on top of it because that'll make it the same heat level, the same temperature all the way across it. So Not necessarily true here with with concrete, but we did have one a couple weeks ago where someone needed to level the concrete first.

So make sure that you do that first, especially if you're going over a wood sub floor. But sorry to hijack you there. No. Absolutely.

That's definitely something to think about. So looking at the underlayment, Scott, can you kind of tell us why SARSorb isn't important going on going over a concrete slab?

We know that when you're installing floor heating, it's not free. Right? But that's what keeps our lights on. You have to pay for the floor heating And when you do go to the trouble of of contacting us and buying our product, we want your product to be warm. We want you to have a satisfactory installation.

We hear from people and and and when we talk to people about concrete slabs. As soon as they say, I'm putting this over a concrete slab, our first response is you should install serousorb.

Because Sarah'sorb is going to keep your is going to isolate your wire from the slab. Because if you put your wire directly on the slab, the slab's gonna pull the heat down into it, and your floor is going to feel not cold.

So when we address this in our installation manual, If you buy a floor and you install floor heating cables on a concrete floor, your floor will not will be not cold. If you put it over serizorb, your floor will get warm. There's a difference between not cold, which means in the seventies, and warm, which means in the eighties. There's literally can be a ten degree or more difference from a floor that would be put on concrete as opposed to putting over the serous orb.

Now the reason why we say serosorb instead of cork, people will say, well, I just wanna do cork instead. Well, the thing is cork is cheaper. But also when you pour self leveling, which is full of water on top of cork, it wants to do this. It wants to expand.

It wants to disconnect from the slab, and we've had some horror stories where people that didn't get it put down very well, it just all bubbled up, and they had to start all over again.

Sera'sorb doesn't expand like that when it gets wet. Also, if it's in a basement, it it's not it's a synthetic product. It won't harbor mold. So there's nothing that mold will grab onto to be able to eat like cork.

Cork is a natural product, and cera's orb is not. So you wanna make sure you get that surge orb attached really well to the subfloor using thin set. You don't need to use anything fancy. Just modified thin set.

Push it down, make sure you get good adhesion if you do, roller it down. And now what you've done is you've isolated the heating wire from the slab. You're going to get much warmer temperatures. It's going to heat up faster, and you're going to use less electricity.

So that's what it's all about when it comes to ZeraZorb. And that's why you want SARSorb instead of cork.

Absolutely.

And I think that that's exactly a really good point to make is that you're you're going to want to make sure that you are really isolating that slab. I think a lot of people kind of similar to the ohm breeder that we were talking about earlier, making sure that you have, you know, the right equipment and that you're doing this the right way is gonna go so far in making sure that the product is working the way you want it to. I get a lot of people who, you know, don't wanna put downstairs or or don't wanna test the system multiple times. And then if there is an issue, it's harder to fix because, obviously, it wasn't done correctly the first time.

So just make sure that if there's any questions on the correct way to do the installation that you're reaching out. Right. And, you know, we're the ones in tech support that get the call from the people that say, You know what? I chose not to use SARS or My floor doesn't really get that warm.

What can I do to make it warmer?

It's like, well You could have put seras or right. Yeah. Unfortunately, yes, we do get those calls. So and that's why I really like this cross section.

So it's showing every step of that install. Again, there's the slab, and then you're putting your thinset, and your SARSorb underlayment, and then your cut and turn flex rule, and then again, of course, the self leveling and LVT. So you can see every step of that. And you can also see that it's not adding a ton of height difference to the floor even with all those steps.

The serous orb is about six millimeters thick, so it's incredibly thin. And the flexural is also very thin as well. So you don't end up with a lot of height difference, and you're going to have that really nice warm floor the way you're picturing it, it's going to really work a lot better with that serosorb.

And the same rule applies here. You need to make sure that you attach the flex roll very, very well with a cable side down.

K. We get that question all the time. Cable side up or cable side down? Cable side down, and then hot glue it to the Sarajora. Because as soon as you put that self leveling over, it's going to try to go right up to the top of the poor. So it's very important that your SARS absorbs attached well and also your temp zone flex rolls attached very well, cable side down.

Absolutely.

And in that vein, talking about the Temestone Flex role, obviously, we'll give you that layout plan showing where you'll be cutting and terming it. So be sure to follow that along each step of that installation, and then make sure that you are attaching it to the subfloor or that stairs or really well. Staples gun, double sided tape, hot glue gun. As long as you're just being a little bit extra careful to damage or mess with the actual wires, you should be able to install that very easily.

Yeah. Someone calls up and goes, I have too much product? Can I cut it? We get that question every single day.

Can I cut the heating wire? Can I trim it short? And the answer to that is no. That's why installation plans are so important because it's better to have a little too little than it is to have a little too much because you can't cut the heating cable.

So you just can't get rid of it. So that's why it's so important to get the right size installed in the space And that's why we we strongly suggest you get a plan because we will figure that out for you. So the answer to the question that no one's asking is what do I do here if I have too much? But we know in real life you're going to have that question if you order too much, and that would be you cannot cut it.

So always important to check your dimensions. Make sure the dimensions that we put on the plan match the dimensions that you sent us because that way if something changes, if you decide in the bathroom, hey, you know what? I'm gonna instead of putting in a small tub, I'm gonna put a giant tub in. But you don't tell us you're going to get a plan that has a plan for the small tub.

And now that you've doubled the size of that tub, there's no room for your heating to go anymore.

You can't cut it, so you're going to have to get a different size.

So very, very important to keep that in mind when you're doing sizing your project.

Absolutely.

And then, again, that next step is taking the floor sensor from the thermostat box and stalling it into the open loop. Again, just make sure that it's going to be not touching the cables at any point and that it's kind of woven into that fiberglass mesh. To hold it in place. Yep. And then you can put a dollop of of glue hot glue on the wire right there to hold it all in place. So that's what you're going to want to do with that.

And then the final steps for each project are self leveling cement.

You do want to make sure that you're testing the system before laying out anything permanent like cement. And then you'll want to embed the wire in at least a half inch layer. So again, make sure that everything's secured very well the subfloor, use masking tape every two to three feet, and then you can begin pouring out your cement.

Yeah.

Sometimes people say, why don't you send me fixing strips to use these in instead of the two feet of of of tape there. Well, first of all, the the fixing strips don't have anything to keep the cable down. They just keep the cable space correctly. They won't hold it down.

And you'll find out that the masking tape is much, much less expensive too. So it's it's really a good thing there with the with the masking tape. And you don't want really wide You don't you you don't wanna get duct tape. You don't wanna get two inch or three inch wide duct tape.

You just simply want the three quarter inch or or one inch of masking tape. That's going to be just enough to hold that cable down until the the self leveling product solidifies.

Absolutely.

So then once that self leveling has dried and complies with the moisture level requirements from the flooring manufacturer of that LVT, then you can begin installing your flooring and you do wanna make sure that you're following all acclimation requirements for that specific type of flooring. And all directions provided by the floor manufacturer.

And you wanna make sure that you are waiting to power up the system until that's leveling is completely cured, not just dried. And Scott, I think you touched on that earlier saying, you know, you wanna make sure that you're aware of the cure times, you're aware of you know, all of that information beforehand, so you're not gonna end up damaging the system. Yeah. What you might wanna do is go on and get a moisture tester too. They're really they're twenty bucks or something. They're not very expensive.

Just to make sure that the self leveling is dried off enough, that you can put the top over it. One thing people love to do is they they say, hey, I wanna make sure that the cable heats up. Can I can I put can I give power to it while it's on the spool? Absolutely not. You or or in the role because it will heat up so fast that it could cause some problems. So you never apply electrical current to the coils until the flooring is done and installed.

We've had people who they'll they'll get the self leveling over the product, then they'll want to hook up the thermostat to the product to turn it on to see if it heats up. Well, first of all, that heat is gonna go straight into the air because there's no flooring over the top. So never ever judge the the flooring performance by trying to turn it on before the planks are on top. And never do that until it is cured.

So there's a there's many reasons why you only do ohms testing on this product to make sure that it's good while you're installing it. Because if your own numbers are good, it's going to heat. Ohm's law tells you that. If you give it electricity and you have ohms, it will heat.

So that's all you need to do. Please don't try to apply power to it. Anytime before that?

Absolutely.

And then from there, you'll install your wire ring. So most local codes will require that this step be done by a licensed electrician. I always recommend it if you are not a hundred and ten percent positive, you know, what you're doing with electric, probably better not to mess with it and have a professional come in. So they can do all the wiring and set up the thermostat, make sure that all local electrical and building codes are being followed.

And then keep in mind, coal leads can be run to a junction box that has a secondary connection to the thermostat if needed. And if that is the case, then we can always help walk you or you're nutrition through that? Right. Especially if you have a system that's really large and you have multiple mats, or multiple cables that need to wire together, instead of trying to send three cold leads up this conduit.

What you do is you send the three leads to a box down here put them together and then run one single run of Romex up to the back of the thermostat. That's much it's much easier to make one connection than it is three. So that's why we suggest that. And notice there are two conduits here, one for the sensor and one for the non heating leads.

Yes. Absolutely.

And then the last step before enjoying your warm floors is setting up your thermostat. So Again, talking with the floor manufacturer, be aware of any of their temperature limitations or maximums, and then you can use one of a few different settings to actually set that. So we do have a laminate setting that has a maximum of eighty two degrees, This is often the case with vinyl as well. Eighty two degrees tends to be the maximum. It's pretty common. So if that's the case and that's the maximum from your manufacturer, then you can use the laminate setting, or you can use a different setting to set another custom maximum temperature.

The thing that we want you to also ask the manufacturer of the flooring is are setback temperatures allowed.

Which means I want it to run eighty two degrees during the day, but I wanna set it back to sixty eight at night.

Do those companies allow that, or don't they? Some flooring companies say you can only have a deviation of three degrees per day. Well, if you can only deviate three degrees per day, that's not going to make much difference to your electric bill.

If you can set it back fifteen degrees per day, you know, at night overnight when no one's on it, That could definitely affect your electric bill.

But a lot of LVT manufacturers are very paranoid and they say you only get to set it back three degrees. And that's where it comes it's it's important to know that for this next slide. Because If you can't do a setback temperature, you don't need a programmable thermostat.

You simply need one that will set it to a temperature and keep it there forever. So Lynn, you want to tell us the differences between these and which one I might be talking about, if they can't do setbacks? Absolutely. So I really like this slide.

You can actually see a lot of the differences in the different control options that we offer. And the one that Scott's discussing or mentioning is our entrust, which is the one on the far right. And the entrust is a non programmable thermostat, so it really just controls the exact temperature of the floor. You can turn it off and on and on and up or up and down rather.

And this is gonna be really good if you have a flooring where they don't want a lot of deviation in the temperature throughout the day. If that is something that is acceptable, and they say, you know, you can vary the temperature, you know, up and down throughout the day as much as you want. Well, then you might wanna look at programmable thermostat like our Inspire Touch or the Inspire Touch Wi Fi, where you can actually set it to run to a certain schedule.

So are there any questions? I'm not seeing any that have popped in so far. Olivia, do you mind checking book for us and make sure there aren't any questions there.

And if any questions do pop up, While we do a little bit of housekeeping, feel free to ask away. Olivia says no questions on Facebook. Awesome. So that either means we've bored them all to death or we have answered every question.

So I'll take either one. Yeah. No. We don't want them to go night night.

We don't Well, that's fair. I guess, I think we're very young. Today. Oh, of course.

So that is all that we have for today is a webinar. Our next webinar is July thirteenth, again, Thursday at one PM right here on crowdcast. We'll be going over choosing the right snow melting control. So feel free to join us for that. That'll be a very interesting webinar for sure.

It's so hard to think about snow in July, but I think it's perfect juxtaposition because What you really need to do in the summertime is you need to think about getting your summer projects done. And then that's when you can put asphalt in. That's when you can pour concrete That's when you can do that kind of work. So it's really time to think about snow melting in the middle of the summer where you can actually put that stuff in.

And that's why it's scheduled then. Yes. Absolutely. It's the best time to do it.

And it's also when you don't wanna think about it. So that's what we're here for. We'll remind you about the snow. Yep.

And then we do also offer daily trainings at least once a day here on crowdcast. They're usually short, ten to fifteen minutes.

So feel free to hop on in, learn a little bit more and ask any questions.

We do also have a fifteen percent off snow melting promotion currently. As Scott said, now is the time to be purchasing and installing snow melting systems. So, through the end of June, we are offering fifteen percent off, and you can visit our website for more information.

And at the end of the webinar today, we'll send an email quickly as for some feedback. We'd love to hear your comments and suggestions, and we especially especially would love to hear if there's any topics you would like to hear from us about in the future. So that we can make sure that all of your questions are answered and that we're doing presentations that you're interested in.

And if you ever have questions or any assistance, reach out. You can give us a call or email us. And, of course, visit our website for tons more information on our products. We have videos, blog posts, anything you would want to learn about floor heating. Or any of our products on our website as well.

And that is all that we have for today's presentation. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, have a wonderful rest of your day. Stay warm. And be radiant. Thanks for joining us.