There are many questions we get about the compatibility of wood floor system with radiant floor heat, which is why today we dedicate our post to this topic.
Radiant floor heating system is that most closely approximates the ideal curve of temperature distribution, thus becoming more frequent use. Its operation is to provide heat to the liquid flowing through the pipes housed under the floor, so that once set, and pavement screed, reach a temperature higher than the room to be heated, there is transfer of heat to medium. As the heat emitter system _with the soil itself all the layers that occurs componen_ total uniformity in the emission having no hot spots or cold in the rooms as with other heating systems. The system can operate with any energy source, oil boilers, gas, heat pumps, solar or biomass.
When we ask if the wood floor is a system compatible with underfloor heating mats we consider two aspects, firstly the efficiency of wood as a transmitter and the other choosing the most suitable construction solution and the correct calculation of the system (as it has to take into account the thermal conductivity of the entire set that makes up the ground, not only the timber finish.)
Wood floors have qualities similar to other pavement surface temperature so that it is homogeneous, with the added advantages that it is a coating that can be placed with less bulk of mortar and pavement to be a low thermal inertia.
We could ask the question of the use of wood for its hygroscopic nature, ie to exchange moisture with the environment provoking swelling and shrinkage phenomena in the material itself, but this heating system makes the humidity decreases with increasing temperature and this together with the advances in the regulation and control systems help the material to behave in a fairly stable.
However there are some general recommendations that favor the behavior of floor heating with wood finish and could be summarized in the use of stable woods (little nervous), with densities greater than or equal to 650kg/m3, with a moisture balance 8% -9% and glued to the base so that the adhesive promotes heat transfer and in turn prevents movement of the timber. In this sense hardwoods like bamboo have excellent thermal behavior as issuers and others such as maple, beech or jatoba (always talking about solid table) have shown some problems.
UNE 56810, the placement of flooring system most suitable for installation over underfloor heating is the parquet glue, in which case we must pay special attention to queues, queues must be used to retain its elasticity when dry and in which tenacity and internal cohesion is maintained over time, the most used are the twin polyurethane, and epoxy silanes.
But not always the floor is placed in direct contact with the sill exist wood floor installations fixed on battens. In these cases there are two constructive solutions recommended, one in which the heating pipes are housed in a thermal diffuser, a pattern sheets for this purpose which are nailed on the battens and transmitting the heat pipes by direct contact with the wood and another in which the strips are received and leveled with cement mortar, leaving it flush with the top of the batten. In the latter case the pipes are housed within the mortar must take into account the thickness of mortar to adjust the calculation.
And in relation to the calculation, we said that the issuer of the whole system is soil, so the thermal resistance will depend on all materials that determine our construction detail: vapor barrier, insulation, moisture sound, adhesives, mortars, leveling compounds, wood floor … It is very important because this is a direct relationship between the actors involved in defining and implementing the ground, ie between the company that calculates and install underfloor heating and the company to provide and install the wood floor.
Another factor that should not forget to not compromise the performance of the wood once the installation is correct commissioning of heating cables, each farbicante recommendations outlined in the technical data.
