ᐅ Solid wood parquet on underfloor heating

The question of whether hardwood floors can be sanded multiple times comes up repeatedly. Somehow, a higher number tends to convey a sense of security or superior quality.

A wooden floor naturally has knots, discolorations, and other characteristics—that’s precisely why it is meant to be a WOOD floor.

Except for a few exceptions, I can hardly imagine a reason to sand a wooden floor, and I have always had hardwood floors in my various living spaces.

In my previous house, the plank floor was 30 years old, and I never even considered sanding it; of course, it was covered with indentations from delicate-legged chairs or evidence of our dog’s joyful antics.

If you let go of the desire for perfect hardwood floors for a moment, it becomes easier to accept without really looking worse, and the floor can finally be what it is—a wooden floor, poor thing.

A smooth, lacquered surface or a mirror with scratches would bother me a lot; scratches on a wooden floor don't really bother me unless someone intentionally causes them or acts carelessly. In that case, I naturally stand up for my floor.

Good morning everyone, dear forum community!

We are currently at the stage of choosing floor coverings. In most parts of the house, we plan to install a high-quality hardwood floor (LONGLIFE PD 200 rustic caramel oak 8457).

One specialist store recommended a floating installation with a special impact sound insulation that is particularly heat-conductive. Another specialist store advised us to definitely glue down the hardwood.

It should be mentioned that we want to install the floor ourselves, and the floating installation method is certainly easier than gluing the floor. We also really like that with the floating method, the hardwood [B]has a slight give when walked on, making it feel softer.

On the websites of the hardwood manufacturers, it is stated that floating installation with specific impact sound insulation has no disadvantages compared to the glued method.

Sanding the floor – whether we will actually ever do this is another question – is, however, only possible to a limited extent with floating installation. This was told to us by the specialists and is also stated online. But there must be a way to fix the hardwood with weights or similar, so it can be sanded evenly, right?

Our concern, however, is regarding the functionality of the underfloor heating. Can anyone say how much the floating installation of hardwood affects the efficiency of the underfloor heating and heating costs compared to gluing?

Maybe someone here has experience installing floating hardwood over underfloor heating and could briefly share their personal experience?

We are currently a bit confused, as you seem to get about ten different opinions when asking ten experts...

I don’t have a floating parquet floor, but I can tell you that the additional air layer doesn’t completely block heat permanently. It just takes longer for the heat energy to reach the surface. This would be a disadvantage with a high-temperature heating system because each heating cycle would take longer to bring the room temperature up to the desired level, resulting in higher energy consumption.

With modern low-temperature systems, however, you keep the entire system at a low but slightly warmer temperature. So whether the underfloor heating takes two days or 28 hours to reach the set temperature doesn’t really matter, because once it is up to temperature, the heat doesn’t escape any faster. You’re not creating a thermal bridge; you’re simply adding a bit more resistance, which is negligible on average.

Tolentino schrieb:

I don’t have any floating parquet flooring, but I can tell you that the additional air layer doesn’t completely block the heat permanently. It simply takes longer for the heat energy to reach the surface. This can be a disadvantage with a high-temperature heating system because each heating boost basically takes longer to bring the room temperature to the desired setpoint – which would use more energy.
With modern low-temperature systems, however, you keep the entire system at a low but slightly warmer temperature. This means it doesn’t really matter if the underfloor heating takes two days or 28 hours to reach the setpoint, because once it’s up to temperature, the heat doesn’t dissipate faster or anything like that. You’re not creating a thermal bridge but just adding a bit more resistance, which averages out to be negligible.

Thanks, Tolentino. That’s pretty much how the specialist dealer explained it to us regarding floating installations. He also thought that it doesn’t make much difference whether you turn on the heating two days earlier in autumn or not – especially since the wood stores the heat and you can turn the heating down two days earlier in winter as well.

Besides, with modern underfloor heating and low-temperature operation, you usually heat with a continuous flow temperature anyway.

DaSch17 schrieb:

A specialty store recommended a floating installation with a special impact sound insulation that is particularly permeable to heat. Another specialty store suggested that we should definitely glue down the parquet flooring.

Both methods work. However, gluing performs better—especially for underfloor heating and, in particular, for the feel. Floating feels and sounds quite different.

The heat storage capacity of the parquet flooring is certainly negligible.