RESULTS Engineered Floor stress test and underfloor heating

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Hello. I am in the market to purchase a new floor. At the 5k bill I'm looking at, I am being very cautious. I therefore am looking advice from other peoples actual experience.

The floor will go over carbon film heating situated on plywood subfloor and 6mm depron.

MY STRESS TEST
I obtained a sample of an engineered floor (hand scraped acacia) from lumber liquidators.

- I put the sample on top of a 3kw electric oil heater and left it for a few hours
- I then stuck it in the fridge for an hour
- Then stuck it back on the heater
- Then stuck it in the fridge overnight
etc. for 2 days.

RESULT: The finish cracked all over.

I would like to try the same thing with an engineered wood that has a natural finish vs one with so many protection layers of alu oxide and such.

In any case, I am worried that changes in temperature will affect any floor I put down. Especially if I leave the house empty for several months (it is a retirement home) and then come back and turn on my toasty warm floors. If the damage can happen in 1-2 days (< 24 hrs), I can only imagine what can happen over a 2 yr period.

KAHRS has been recommended to me. Can anyone comment on their experience with it?

Maybe I should stress test all samples and just see which does the best.

Regards for all comments from ppl with experience including installing click-lock and tounge and groove on carbon film.
 
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We would recommend our Duoplank Oak range, guaranteed on Underfloor Heating (if, of course, you treat your underfloor heating system correctly!)

Leaving a house empty for months and then turning on the heating full throttle is asking for trouble. With every floor we supply that goes onto a underfloor heating system we provide guidelines on how to correctly start up the system.
 
Your test! How hot was the wood? Surface temperature? How cold was the wood?

You cant install wood on top of heating source and run it HOT. The max it can be run at is 27c give or take 1 degree. Now this is the temperature of the wood, not the room.


You cant also just turn the underfloor heating off. You need to reduce the temperature slowley. You should never leave a property un-heated. When you leave the place for say a couple of weeks or even months, you will still need to run your heating. Of course you can run it alot cooler than normal but it should never be turned off.


Personaly i wood avoid underfloor heating unless its a second heat source and it runs at a constant 18c. Just to keep the chill off the floor surface. The electric systems are very expensive to run also.
 
Comments please from other people besides retailers/manufacturers.

We would recommend our Duoplank Oak range[/url], guaranteed on Underfloor Heating

Thanks- please send me 2 samples of planks (small- maybe 24 cm each) so I can test the tounge and groove and I will stress test it in the same way as lumberliquidators product and post results here. Just an fyi that the underfloor heating states the thickness of the floor needs to be 15mm. I already have a subfloor of 18mm.
 
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How do you rhyme this?
A) Comments not from retailers/manufactures who have plenty of experience with their products in all kind of different circumstances with B) retailer, send sample.

Re your total construction of your floor: temperature of top surface - no matter what the construction above the underfloor heating system is - should never exceed 28 degrees Celsius.
Strength test on T&G will not tell you anything about how the wood-engineered floor behaves when exposed to underfloor heating. You should test the bonding between backing and solid top layer
 
You are correct- I need to provide temperature data for the STRESS test and mm wood thickness. I will do that. But obviously this thread is not about warning me about what I can and should or should not do with my own floor-or whether uf heating is a good option- keep that to yourself. So stay on topic and either post your real life example with uf heating or don't post at all.

Your test! How hot was the wood? Surface temperature? How cold was the wood?
 
You should test the bonding between backing and solid top layer

Yes that is something I will look at. The lumber liquidators product performed supurbly in the delaminating area. Which is great. however the cracking is so unsightly that at that point the delaminating was a moot issue.

However, this is my test and I am going to test up to 70c which is what many floors ie kahrs are rated at. I will also look at what happens at 40c since many tounge and groove glues are only rated to 40c. I like warm floors and this WILL be used as a primary heating system, which is what people like myself want. If your product can't meet my criteria I can understand why you'd want to change my testing criteria.
 
Beg your pardon?
All questions and remarks made here by myself and mattysupra are about how you test.
REAL LIFE Experiences from professionals. But if you like, we keep that to ourselves then.
 

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