Fitting wooden floor with underfloor heating on chip board.

[LearningLass]

Hi I'm after some advise.
I've got chipboard floor boards in our kitchen/sitting room (upside down house). And am keen to fit a solid wood flooring.
Am I best to take up the chipboard first. A friend advised me that it is not a good enough surface to fix to.
Ideally I would have underfloor (elec) heating too. Does anyone know if this is possible? If so it is advised to fit insulation boards on the chip board first?
Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks

 

[mointainwalker]

It is very advisable to fit insulation under electric heating coils but in my opinion the usual 5 or 10 mm offered is very ineffective, expensive rubbish with still a lot of heat wasted. Exactly what the recommended build-up with your chip-board etc would be, I'm sorry but I don't know, as I have water UFH with 75 mm of insulation.

Have you considered the new floor-height with insulation plus element plus wooden-floor and what that means for your doors and floor-heights relative to what you have elsewhere in the house ?

 

[crazydaze]

Can I ask why you want to fit a solid wood floor? An engineered floor would be far more stable and less troublesome, especially over underfloor heating if you pursue that option.

Ideally, you need to match the flooring above the UFH to the UFH system itself, in that you don't want to be exceeding the output of the UFH system by putting too thick a floor layer on top, at best the floor won't heat efficiently, at worst the whole system may be totally inaffective/fail.

The underfloor heating system should have specs suggesting max thermal resistance above it, the flooring you buy will have the same re: wha is beneath it and by matching the spec you will ensure that it will all work effectively.