Cable systems are fine.

As far as tiling over any electric rfh, cable or mat, you can really improve the quality and ease of the tile installation by using SLC over the cable/mat prior to tiling.

SLC also minimizes the likelihood that you'll ding the cable when you thinset the tile down.

The SLC can be a few dollars extra, but you'll also save a few dollars by using less thinset when tiling over SLC versus tiling over cable/mat.

I'm off to cheerleading practice, good luck!

Cassandra

Whatever you do, don't get ThermoSoft. You *might* end up with a good installation, you might end up with something like two of us here had...run for a while and then break.

Another tip: don't just use the resistance meter as a determinant of whether the wires are intact after installation. Really hook them up completely and see if they heat the whole way through and don't throw the GFCI. BEFORE you SLC or tile over them. Easier to rip it out at that point and redo it than to cry forever because it all seemed to work and then cr*pped out after half an hour or even a year.

I've also heard NuHeat is very tough. One contractor told us he was whacking it on the side of something to clean off old thinset when he had to reinstall it and it still worked afterwards. I wouldn't recommend doing *that*, but other folks have also said NuHeat is reliable.