Wooden floor on underfloor heating

kellso81

Just wanted to ask if anyone has any experience with a wooden floor with underfloor heating. We were hoping to put down a reclaimed parquet floor in the living area but are being warned against it by our builders who say it isn't as efficient as ceramic tiles and the wood can warp and come up. Any wooden floor specialists we talk to say there shouldn't be a problem, but of course they would as they're trying to sell me something. Any advice appreciated, thanks.

Outkast_IRE

kellso81 wrote: »

Just wanted to ask if anyone has any experience with a wooden floor with underfloor heating. We were hoping to put down a reclaimed parquet floor in the living area but are being warned against it by our builders who say it isn't as efficient as ceramic tiles and the wood can warp and come up. Any wooden floor specialists we talk to say there shouldn't be a problem, but of course they would as they're trying to sell me something. Any advice appreciated, thanks.

I have posted on this many times before regarding advantages and disadvantages of underfloor.

The summarised version is this.

1. If the floor is fully dried out properly with underfloor running and the timber floor plank boxes are opened and left in the room to adjust to acclimatise etc, then there should be no problem with laying them.

2. The main disadvantage of underfloor is the longer response time than radiators, you cant just come home flick a switch and have almost instant heat like rads. You either maintain the room to a constant set temp , or you time it to come on and off, if you time it to come on and off there will be an even longer response time due to the timber you have laid over the floor which adds mass to the structure leading to a longer heat up time in those rooms.

Personally i reccomend people pick tile, or solid finishes such as polished concrete, but many people have picked timber.

The only way i would see problems is if the temp of the water running through the underfloor was set too high, then there could be issues, but assuming your system is designed and installed properly its just the longer resopnse times to worry about.

wilser

Have seen amtico put down on ufh & it worked perfect, couldn't tell the difference between it & wooden flooring to look at tbh

Outkast_IRE

Forgot to ask earlier but would you consider wood effect tiles ?
When laid by somebody whos excellent at tiling they look excellent, and people only realise its a tile when they start walking around on it.