wool carpets and UFH

J

johnnyg

Registered User
Messages
600
i have UFH on both floors and i'm at the stage now to decide what to put on them, before i was always recommended laminate as the best option, but a colluge has told me that she has wool carpets down in her rooms and the rooms are lovely and warm...has anyone an opinion or have this done.
I have also seen solid floors being recommended but you have to use a corkwood underlay..but the shop didn't supply it, has anyone seen this and whats the cost?
Cheers
 
I put tiles throughout the whole of downstairs - UFH works great with them. I put semi-solid ashe upstairs - there is a noticeable difference in the temp of the floor surface when stats are set at the same temp as downstairs. Walking from semi solid floor in bedroom to tiled floor in ensuite, I notice a huge difference in surface temp. Was only thinking last week that I was glad that we didnt decide upon a solid wood floor. I would be very cautious about putting down carpet on UFH.
 
Check the tog rating of the flooring. You want a lower tog rating to let the heat pass through.
 
JohnnyG,
Solid Timber floors are not a good option with UFH as they tend to warp and twist. The semi-solid flooring is suitable and you don't get that feeling of a cheap floor you get with some laminates when you walk on them
 
We put tiles downstairs which work great with ufh, we put laminate upstairs also with good transfer and then we put wool carpet on our bedroom which initially was much cooler than the rest of the house. We contacted the ufh guys who came and tweaked the heating to that room and its now warm and toasty like the rest of the house. By the way there is a special underlay for ufh which is more expensive than the norm.

The tiles and laminate work better for heat transfer but it is still possible to live comfortably with carpet and ufh.
 
What you will find with carpet that the flow and return temperature in the ufh will have to be slightly higher than that in tiled areas. it will mean that your system is less efficient than it would be with tiles but it will still work!
I reckon that if you ask your installers they might be able to split your manifold in two(or just get two smaller ones) and put carpeted areas on one and tiled areas on the other so that you could use the heat coming out of the carpeted rooms to heat the tiled rooms. and if you only need to heat tiled rooms then you could run your heating system a bit less.
If you are putting in a geothermal unit You will struggle with carpet!! personally I would stay away from Geotherm but thats just personally.
Rgds
Inchy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top