Mounting a water-heated floor under a laminate is a completely feasible task under certain conditions. You need to choose a special laminate, any one will not work. Read more about the right choice of materials and self-installation of a water floor in the article.
When arranging underfloor heating in an apartment building, you may have insurmountable problems. First of all, you will have to coordinate the project of such a floor with the housing and communal services operating the house. It is not always possible to achieve mutual understanding. Everything is much simpler if you set out to equip your own house with warm water floors. But even here a number of rather difficult tasks will have to be solved.
Issues you may encounter
First of all, you will have to choose a laminate that is made using technologies that allow it to be used in a floor heating system. Conventional laminate does not conduct heat well and does not like moisture. Such a coating will not last long, and the heating will turn out to be unimportant. But some types of laminate are designed specifically for warm water floors. They conduct heat better and resist moisture. Such material is labeled accordingly. Most often you can find the marking "Warm wasser".
In order for the water floor system to work more efficiently, without wasting unnecessary energy, thermal insulation will have to be laid in the base of the floor before laying the pipes. It will be necessary to install a special pump for pumping coolant through the pipes, and a control system that will monitor the heating temperature.
Benefits of a warm water floor
By installing a warm water floor, you can completely abandon standard heating systems. The nature of the air heating in the room where underfloor heating is installed is considered the most comfortable for living people. At the same time, you do not have to sacrifice space for the installation of massive heating radiators and think about how they will correspond to the overall design of the premises. It is also important that due to the warm floor it is possible to significantly reduce the cost of heating a house. Savings can be about 25%. The high service life of water floors allows, in case of their proper operation, for a long time not to resort to repair work. Pipes laid under the floor covering will last at least 50 years.
The heat carrier from the general heating system circulates through the pipes laid under the floor covering, warming the floor surface. If you have not forgotten the laws of physics, then you can easily imagine how the air heated near the floor surface tends upward, giving way to the cold air descending. During this process, called convection, there is a gradual mixing of air layers with different temperatures. The floor heating temperature can be changed using automatic thermostats.
What pipes are needed?
It is not advisable to use metal pipes in the construction of a water floor. Their installation is very difficult, and the cost is high. It is more reasonable to prefer pipes made of cross-linked polyethylene. They are easy to bend along any radius and are not afraid of temperature changes and corrosion. Their main disadvantage is their low ring stiffness. To protect them from damage, you will have to slightly increase the thickness of the concrete screed.
A good result can be achieved when metal-plastic pipes are used in the construction of the water floor. They are also not afraid of high temperatures and pressure, and are not subject to corrosion. You can bend such pipes simply by hand. Among the obvious advantages is the low price.
There are many sizes of pipes for a water floor. But pipes whose throughput diameter is less than 16 millimeters do not allow the system to work correctly. And too thick pipes will require a significant thickness of the concrete screed. A diameter of 16-18 millimeters can be considered optimal.
Installation of a water heated floor under a laminate
First of all, you need to do the laying of the pipes of the water floor. You can lay them in a spiral or in parallel. There is no big difference. But when laying in a spiral, the heating of the floor will go more evenly. To avoid large hydraulic losses, the length of one circuit should not be more than 100 meters. In all cases, it is necessary to maintain the step between the turns of the pipes within 10-15 centimeters. This will also affect the uniformity of heating. With too large a step, the appearance of cold zones is inevitable. It is strongly not recommended to lay pipes in those places where the joints of floors and slabs pass. In this case, you will have to divide the heating circuits into several independent ones. But if for some reason it is impossible to do this, then at the intersection of the pipe joints, you will have to protect it with strong metal sleeves. Their length should be about 30 centimeters.
You will have to plan in advance places for installing furniture. In those places where cabinets and other similar furniture will stand, laying pipes is not only pointless, but even dangerous. The floor may overheat and warp. Laying carpets on a warm floor is also not worth it.
High-quality thermal insulation
Before you start laying pipes, you will have to think about high-quality thermal insulation. If in its design you use ready-made profile heat-insulating plates that have recently appeared on sale, this will greatly simplify the installation process. Moreover, such material will protect already laid pipes from damage until the moment when you fill them with concrete. But you will have to lay thermal insulation over the entire floor area, even where there will be no pipes. Along the perimeter of the walls, a damper tape of a thickness of at least 5 mm should be fixed with a suitable width. It will work as a compensator for thermal expansion of the screed.
The use of mats for warm water floors Collector arrangement
Regarding the arrangement of the collector, through which you connect the underfloor heating to the boiler, there are different opinions. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. But since it is extremely important for a laminate floor that it heats up smoothly, it makes sense to give preference to a mixing manifold with a parallel mixing system.
Such collectors allow you to install a two-way mixing valve, which allows you to smoothly adjust the temperature of the coolant entering the system. You will have to close your eyes to certain heat losses in such a system.
We check the quality of work
After you have laid the pipes and connected them to the collector, the water floor system will have to be pressure tested. The easiest way to do this is if you used metal-plastic pipes. It will be enough to pump cold water into them for one day at a pressure of 6 bar. After this period, the pressure should remain at the initial level.
Otherwise, you have to act in the case when polypropylene pipes are used. They will have to be loaded with a pressure that is twice the working pressure, but not less than 6 bar. It will gradually decrease and after thirty minutes it will need to be raised to its original level. This will have to be done three times in a row. After that, you will have to restore the pressing pressure again. After a day, the pressure drop should not exceed 1.5 bar. Leaks are not allowed. Only then it can be considered that the work has been carried out qualitatively.
To clear your conscience, you can test with hot water brought to operating temperature. This should be done after pressing. Such a test will help detect leakage in the joints and relieve additional stresses that have arisen in the pipes during their installation.
Pouring concrete screed
Finally, you can take on the pouring of the concrete screed. This should only be done after all systems have been installed. The pipes will have to be supplied with working pressure. The screed is poured with rectangular fields no more than 8 meters long and with an area of \u200b\u200bno more than 40 square meters. The fields will have to be separated from each other by expansion joints.
The usual composition of concrete is not suitable for pouring screed concrete floors. It will have to add a special plasticizer. The amount of plasticizer is determined by the instructions for its use.
Laying laminate flooring on underfloor heating
As for the laminate itself, the process of laying it is not much different from laying a laminate for ordinary floors. The material must first be allowed to mature in the room where it is to be used. The room must be warmed up to normal temperature. The water floor covered with laminate should be warmed up gradually. For an hour, the temperature should not be increased by more than 5-6 degrees. Otherwise, unwanted deformations of the material may occur.
The process of laying laminate is elementary in nature. You can watch a visual video on this topic or study a more detailed article about this flooring on our website.
