Two Ways To Combat Cold Tile Floors

Tile floors have a lot of advantages. For one, they will not break down under foot traffic like carpets will. Also, they are stain resistant. You can spill a highly sugar-saturated drink on a tile floor without worrying that the stain of that accident will haunt you for the rest of your tile's life. Some tiles can be scratched if you have a pebble in your shoe or broken if you drop something heavy on them, but with a reasonable amount of caution, your tile floors should last indefinitely. Still, a lot of people are resistant to buying tile floors simply because they worry that they will be cold underfoot. There are two ways to make sure your tiles do not send shivers running up your body. 

Insulate Your Floors with Rugs

Rugs will act as a barrier between your tile floors and your feet, but they will do more than that. Just like the insulation in your walls, rugs are made from a material that has plenty of voids between the fibers that they are composed of. These voids act as insulation to hold heat in. Thus, a tile floor covered with rugs should stay warmer than a floor without any rugs. Rugs are similar to carpet in this way, and thus will have a similar r-value to carpet. Carefully placed floor rugs can help relieve the cold shock you feel when you step onto a tile floor, but you still have to worry about any tile surfaces not covered by your rugs. 

Warm Your Floor with Radiant Heating

If you think far enough ahead, you can provide yourself with an excellent source of heat for your home and a way to make sure that your tile floors are never cold. Radiant heating systems use water-filled coils in your floor to heat your floors. As hot water circulates through the coils, it warms your floor and from there, the rest of your house. Because the water in the coils will retain some heat even after the system shuts off, radiant flooring can have improved efficiency over other heating systems. The best part, though, about radiant flooring is that it will heat your tiles so that you never have to worry about stepping onto a cold floor. 

Tile floors are a good value for their durability and the character that they can lend to a room. However, you shouldn't have to put up with cold feet just to beautify your home with a tile floor. Luckily, with the right approach, you can take cold out of the equation and enjoy beautiful, comfortable tile floors.