Underfloor heating and your parquet

More and more underfloor heating systems are installed, as they create a comfortable warmth, atmosphere and thus quality of life. Therefore also the chosen floor covering has to be technically mature and applicable.

Apart from the natural beauty and warmth of the wood – especially with oiled surfaces – the thermal resistance of Adler parquets is also low. These properties and the multi-layered structure render the parquets well suited for installation over underfloor hot water heating systems. You can find the individual thermal resistance of each product either in our technical product data booklet, which you can download or in the description of each product line.

Installation over electric underfloor heating is not recommended in principle. Laying prefabricated parquet flooring on underfloor heating of over 70 W/m2 is also not advisable.

If you use a combines floor heating and cooling system, you have to take care that there will be no condensed water under the parquet flooring.

We also advise against laying 3-layer floorboards, such as our wide floorboard Profi by adler and our Villa by adler, on underfloor heated floors unless glued full spread. We advise against floating installation. Should you ignore our advice and install using the floating method, then the warranty on our products shall be null and void. Please also take note that the thermal resistance will then increase by the amount of the insulating layer underneath.

Firstly you should read our installing instructions in calm. There you find all important steps for the installation on underfloor heating systems.

Here the most important points, you should be aware of:

Newly applied screeds must dry normally, without heating. The screed must be allowed drying time The waiting period is approx. 28 days. Then your installer of the heating system should start the heating according a specific heating report. Please make sure that your installer fills in and signs this report thoroughly. This report can be found in our infothek for your download.

The surface temperature must not exceed 29°C after laying. The maximum surface temperature for our Deluxe floorboard is 26°C. The ambient temperature and relative humidity of the room should be. 19 - 22°C and 50 – 60%.

To prevent heat pockets during the heating period, it is recommended to position furniture with closed bases away from the wall and to provide ventilation holes at the back. Refrain from laying thick, airtight carpets.

Due to the technical and hygroscopic properties of the natural wood product, gaps may appear in the surface of the prefabricated parquet floor, especially with excessive surface temperatures or inadequate atmospheric humidity. Cracks in the grain or drying cracks may already occur should the atmospheric humidity drop below 50% just once. This is not a quality defect. This may be minimised or prevented by maintaining the room ambient temperature and humidity virtually constant at approx. 22°C and 50 - 60%.

Especially beech wood reacts easily in this respect. That is the reason why we do not offer Beech in our parquet programm. The ambient conditions should therefore be closely maintained in the room. Canadian maple, Jatoba and Larch also count among risky timber, especially when ambient humidity is too low.

From a building physics point of view, installing a room cooling system in the floor is not ideal because, firstly, physically speaking, the cool air is always at the bottom and does not rise upwards and, secondly, the cooling of warm air creates large amounts of free moisture. Therefore, it is preferable to install room cooling in the wall and ceiling area in order not to expose the parquet floor to too much moisture development.

A floor cooling system should not operate for more than a maximum of 21 days per year. Longer cooling phases than two weeks at a time should generally be avoided. If longer cooling phases are necessary, separate air-conditioning units should be operated which not only cool but also dehumidify the air.

Adler parquet is generally suitable for installation over floor cooling systems if it can be ensured and proven by control technology that a daily average of 65% relative humidity is not exceeded directly on the parquet and that the dew point is not even approximately reached at any time. This also means that in normal cooling mode the floor temperature must not be more than 2 to 3°C below the room temperature. In any case, a dew point measurement on the supply pipe alone is not sufficient. Full surface elastic bonding is always absolutely necessary.

In the case of floor cooling, as in heating mode, the natural wood-typical phenomena such as joints,
cracks or cupping can also only be expected to a moderate extent.