Tiles of Wood with Underfloor

doniepony

Hey all

I know this question has prob been discussed elsewhere but would like to bring it up again..just wondering what works better with underfloor heating- tiles or engineered wood. I am building at present (geothermal with underfloor heating on both floors) and am visiting showrooms all the time-there is huge variety out there and just looking for peoples personal experiences with underfloor.

At present I am thinking of having tiles downstairs in the kitchen/dining/sunroom, utility & toilet. Engineered wood in living room and hall and quiet a bit of upstairs. I know alot of this is down to personal taste but in peoples experience with what material does underfloor work better with. Also, is it mostly polished porcelin the most popular tile being used at present in new builds?

Thanks

Outkast_IRE

doniepony wrote: »

Hey all

I know this question has prob been discussed elsewhere but would like to bring it up again..just wondering what works better with underfloor heating- tiles or engineered wood. I am building at present (geothermal with underfloor heating on both floors) and am visiting showrooms all the time-there is huge variety out there and just looking for peoples personal experiences with underfloor.

At present I am thinking of having tiles downstairs in the kitchen/dining/sunroom, utility & toilet. Engineered wood in living room and hall and quiet a bit of upstairs. I know alot of this is down to personal taste but in peoples experience with what material does underfloor work better with. Also, is it mostly polished porcelin the most popular tile being used at present in new builds?

Thanks

I have had long arguments with people about this . Wood will work fine but it adds extra thermal mass to be heated so potentially you are looking at longer heat up and cool down times , the long heat up time is one of the main drawbacks to underfloor , so traditionally people try to lessen the heat up time by using tiles.

Tiles work very well and are good at storing and releasing the heat, most jobs i work on with underfloor pick the tiles and are happy with them .

Some of the more recent installs in the last few years people have picked out wood effect tiles where the tiles actually look like wood , if you have a good tiler they come up looking excellent and i would reccomend them as they are available in all different shades and types etc.

So summed up wood will work fine but there will be a longer heat up and cool down time which is looked at as a negative.

Tiles will work better and there is excellent wood effect tiles available now.

I used tiles throughout the house and found that I can have the UFH water temperature set very low and still heat the house well. I believe that if wood is used the water temperature needs to be higher to overcome the insulation in the wood.

PS: some of the tiles are wood effect, so it looks good as well.

doniepony

Thanks for advice-if I was to use wood in places is engineered still the most efficient to use with underfloor or is there anything better at present?
just looking at budget at the moment.