There are many ways to ensure thermal comfort in your own apartment, among the dozens of solutions, underfloor heating stands out.
Thanks to the electric or water floor heating system, our house will always have the optimal temperature for our body, and the heat will be where it is most needed.
Traditional under-window heaters excessively heat the air in their closest space, which causes the movement of hot air towards the ceiling.
Properly designed and made floor heating systems ensure even heat distribution over the entire floor surface in the room, causing the most comfortable temperature where you need it most, i.e. at the height of your body.
Wooden floors for underfloor heating
Wood is an excellent insulator, therefore, before choosing a wooden floor for underfloor heating, you should learn about the thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of the products offered to you.
Before buying a floor, it is worth asking the seller for the results of comparative tests for individual types of wooden floors.
Unfortunately, there are many companies on the market that rely on the ignorance of the final customer, claiming that every wooden floor is suitable for underfloor heating, which of course is not true.
What floor for underfloor heating?
In the text below, we present general information and useful knowledge that will help each of you choose the right and beautiful wooden floor for underfloor heating, which will also be a durable and functional finish for the interior of your apartment or house.
Are wooden floors for underfloor heating a good idea?
Before making any investment decisions, it is worth considering the choice of the right floor for underfloor heating. The question is very often asked whether wooden floors can be used for this purpose, which are associated with elegance and nature, and not with modern technologies. The answer is unequivocal - yes, but it is necessary to choose the right type of wood so that the parquet fulfills its task and properly heats the room.
Therefore, it is best to choose wooden parquets with good hygroscopicity and a low coefficient of longitudinal and transverse shrinkage , thanks to which there will be no gaps between the boards during the heating period.
It is best to use classic European oak, ash or exotic species such as merbau, doussie, jatoba. Maintaining a dry climate in the room for a long time can lead to the formation of micro cracks in the floor, the boards can deform in many directions. Relative air humidity should not be allowed to drop below 30%, because in this case the wood is rapidly dried and permanent damage to the floor surface may occur. In turn, Canadian maple and beech should be avoided, as these species are characterized by too high a shrinkage factor.
Wooden boards - what type of heating?
An important aspect is the choice of the type of underfloor heating, we have electric or water heating at our disposal. The first is in the form of special heating mats, which are installed in a layer of cement glue or in a screed layer under the floor, over which the lining is fixed. It is a simple and quick way to install underfloor heating under the floors. An important element of such heating is the use of an appropriate thermostat thanks to which the operation of the heating system will be controlled, which will allow us to optimize efficiency and energy consumption, which in turn will translate into significant cost savings related to underfloor heating.
A more popular solution is water floor heating, which evenly distributes heat and thus ensures increased comfort of everyday life.
Wood species that are characterized by a high coefficient of shrinkage and swelling should be avoided, therefore their use in this system is not recommended. We advise against beech and maple boards, as well as wooden floors made of, among others, birch or hornbeam.
To avoid making a mistake in the choice, it is worth having basic knowledge to be a partner in conversations with the seller and choose the best floors for underfloor heating that work perfectly with both systems, without exposing yourself to dangerous situations or unnecessary costs in the future.
Our wooden boards for underfloor heating can be used on both water and electric heating. However, it is worth reminding again that the surface temperature must be controlled and must not exceed 27°C in any part of the parquet, also under furniture or carpets. High temperatures or an unsuitable dry room climate can cause gaps. Underfloor heating should be evenly distributed under the entire parquet floor. If we intend to lay them only in part of the room, the unheated and heated fragments should be separated by an expansion joint.
Layered floor or solid board?
What is best for underfloor heating? Wooden floors on underfloor heating systems are much more exposed to drying out than those installed on traditional screeds that do not have a heating system. It is recommended to use a floor with a layered structure, which is a material incomparably more stable than a solid floorboard. The layered floor ensures even stress distribution.
When choosing layered floors, the user gets a lot of freedom when it comes to dimensions - they can be much larger than in the case of a solid board. On heating systems, you can use elements of wood with a very large format without much risk, e.g. lengths of boards up to 3 meters long and very wide elements up to 30 cm wide without fear that the floor will deform or become deformed as a result of the operation and operation of the heating system will deform.
It is recommended that the thickness of the multi-layer floor for underfloor heating should not exceed 10 mm, and the thermal resistance should not exceed 0.05 m2 K/W. The use of a floor with a thickness of more than 10 mm causes a high value of thermal resistance will make heating ineffective and the energy costs associated with adequate heating of the rooms very high.
How is it with solid boards? It should be remembered that solid boards have worse permeability parameters and a higher coefficient of longitudinal and transverse shrinkage and swelling, which can sometimes lead to floor destruction and multi-directional deformation and lower surface aesthetics under the influence of high temperatures.
What about underfloor heating? Floor technical parameters
Proper use of a floor with underfloor heating is the key to being able to enjoy its long-term aesthetics. What will be laid on the underfloor heating must also have the right parameters to ensure maximum functionality and efficiency of the heating system. When deciding to buy a board for underfloor heating, pay special attention to several parameters. The most important of them is the already mentioned thermal resistance that a wooden board puts when used on an underfloor heating system. What is most important when determining the thermal resistance parameter, the lower the value, the better, because thanks to this, underfloor heating will be more effective and heat loss will be smaller.
Our offer includes layered boards, which are characterized by a very low value of thermal resistance, ranging from 0.033 m2 K/W, which in practice means much greater savings in energy costs compared to other wooden floors. According to the standards set out in DIN 4725, the thermal resistance coefficient should not exceed the value of approx. 0.15 m2 K/W.