Underfloor heating with laminate/LVT/Wood

[Hadjab]

Does anyone have underfloor heating with any of the above? I’m renovating the whole of the ground floor of my house, and want the same flooring throughout. Technically, tile would be the best conductor of heat, which is fine in the kitchen and even the hallway, but I’m not sure I want tiles in the living room. On the other hand, it needs to be efficient, so maybe I need to suck it up.

@Hadjab

Does anyone have underfloor heating with any of the above? I’m renovating the whole of the ground floor of my house, and want the same flooring throughout. Technically, tile would be the best conductor of heat, which is fine in the kitchen and even the hallway, but I’m not sure I want tiles in the living room. On the other hand, it needs to be efficient, so maybe I need to suck it up.

I have exactly the same questions..... I wish someone could reply to this

A good friend owned a semi and went to the trouble of having solid ground floors dug up to be insulated and relaid with insulation and wet UFH. Kitchen and dining room were tiled and front living room was fitted with a good quality laminate which was supposedly suitable for UFH. Due to the relatively small footprint they chose to have the UFH piped as a single zone (big mistake) which resulted in a toasty warm kitchen and dining room and a decidedly chilly lounge, personally I'd have bitten the bullet and changed to wood finish tiles but they chose to put up with it. To achieve a reasonable temp in the living room would've meant being uncomfortably hot in the rest of the ground floor, IMHO wood/laminate is too insulating to be an efficient conductor of heat. No experience with LVT though.

Not quite an answer to your question, but I had bamboo flooring with UFH (the smokier, strand-woven kind). It's more durable than wood and looks more natural than LVT. It also conducts well.

@Hadjab
We have it with engineered wood flooring. Don’t use solid wood. Engineered wood is absolutely fine. We also have it with Amtico. That’s a LVT and isn’t cheap. The Amtico web site gives details. Don’t have any laminate flooring. It’s nowhere near as good as Amtico and engineered wood.

We also have underfloor heating throughout - large area and the whole of it is covered in engineered wood flooring apart from kitchen and bathrooms which are tiles

I had dry underfloor heating and laminate (only source of heat, small flat) and it was fine. Very much un-noticeable as in you never thought oooh the floors nice and warm but equally the flat wasn't cold. After I moved out the next person who rented pushed the heating up high and destroyed the floor - it warped.

I now have dry u/f heating in my kitchen with tiles and the tiles don't have anywhere near the "heat sink" ability I was hoping for. They cool off really fast. I wish I'd gone for wet u/f - although I've never had it so maybe it's no better!

Have wet underfloor heating throughout downstairs and flooring is combination of LVT and tiles. As a PP mentioned, definitely consider your zones and dont have it as one big setting. We have no issues, the tiled area is usually colder but there is also lots of glass there which contributes heavily.

We actually find our tiled areas are warm. We have wet underfloor in kitchen and in hall, cloakroom etc where we have ceramic tiles. Electric underfloor in bathrooms with stone and ceramic tiles. Both are warm. Our kitchen is glass on both sides so we would notice heating issues.

Thanks all. I've opted for solid core LVT.

What really matters with LVT is the wear layer and ability to withstand heavy use. The core (usually compressed layers) is of no odds. They all end up being solid with a degree of flexibility.