Humidity Meter: Floors

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2012年9月13日星期四

Hardwood Floors on Underfloor Heating?

It is feasible to install engineered flooring onto a conventional hot water or electric heating systems. However, if it is not controlled properly, it can cause problems.

The majority of manufacturers who make wood flooring deemed suitable for underfloor heating, do so on the proviso that the sub-floor surface temperature must not exceed 27 degrees C. Exceeding this temperature rises the risk of excessive shrinkage, opening linear splits and cracks, and possible de-lamination of the hardwood wear layer.

Another equally important factor is the relative humidity (R.H.) of the room. A healthy room temperature of 18-20 degrees C should always accompanied by a by a relative humidity of 50-65%. There are many methods of maintaining correct humidity levels, the most accurate being electric humidifiers.

These are about the size of a shoebox, are re-filled with tap water, and release moisture into the atmosphere automatically until the correct pre-set humidity level is reached.

However sometimes just ventilating or keeping plants in the room will have the desired effect. In extreme cases where the R.H. of the room drops below 40%, a bucket of water in a corner of the room will absorb into the air within seven days or so.

Always remember that it is humidity that carries the heat in a room. If you have a really dry room, it will need a higher floor temperature to maintain a 20 degrees C air temperature than if you have correct R.H. It therefore follows that keeping a correct R.H. enables your heating system more economical to run.

Another potential problem is the volume of air within the room that your system is trying to heat.

A room of approximately 20 sq meters with reasonable standards of insulation, and a 2.5 meter ceiling height can be safely heated to up to 22 degrees C with your underfloor heating running at 27 degrees C

The same room with a 3.6m height would require a far higher below floor temperature to achieve the same room temperature. As we now know, this is not possible below wood flooring, so therefore an ancillary heating will also be needed. The same also applies to rooms with inadequate insulation and high heat loss.

Choosing The Flooring

The initial moisture content of the wood floor is an important factor in minimizing movement. For always on heated flooring, wood moisture content of between 6-8 degrees C is recommended. However bear in mind that if the heating is not being used in the warmer more humid months of summer, there will be far greater movement (expansion) of the flooring.

If hardwood with higher moisture content is to be used- say 9-10%, then it is advisable to maintain the humidity at between 55-65%

The width of the boards is relative to its stability. The narrower the board in relation to it's thickness, the more stable it will be, making it more resilient to movement with changes in humidity.

The make up of the board is also an important factor. A 20mm thickness flooring comprising of 14mm of plywood with a 6mm hardwood wear layer is extremely popular today as once installed it is indistinguishable from solid wood planks.

My personal opinion though is that there are two potential problems using this type of flooring.

Firstly a 20mm thickness flooring makes an extremely good insulator, preventing a proportion of the heat transfer, which in turn means that there is a tendency to increase the below floor temperature to compensate for this. Secondly, plywood is an extremely stable base layer. The expansion and contraction of plywood is minimal and is far less than the hardwood wear layer that it is bonded to. Therefore movement in the hardwood layer caused by moisture loss is resisted by the stability of the plywood.

However, this only works up to a point. I have seen cases where the strength of movement in the veneer can make it peel from the edges, or in extreme cases delaminate from the base.

My view is that a 10mm or 14mm thickness engineered floor is far better suited to efficient lower temperature underfloor heating. The makeup of 3.6mm or 4mm hardwood wear layer with 1mm base layer and inter spaced softwood core running at right angles is optimum. Whilst the softwood core is not as stable as plywood, it will allow movement broadly in line with the hardwood wear layer, helping to minimize de-lamination.

Precautions

Always have a floor sensing temperature probe installed below the wood flooring, and set this to limit the temperature to 27 degrees C (unless a different temperature is specified by the wood flooring manufacturer).

Don't rely on the temperature stated by a hot water heating manufacturer. In the case of Polypipe installations, if pipes in certain areas are closer to each other, a far higher temperature will be achieved at this position.

Likewise lower screed levels over parts of the floor will cause the temperature to be exceeded. A responsible heating installer will always check the sub-floor temperature on completion of the work. Always ensure that the moisture content of the sub-floor is below 2% before the wood floor is installed.

Installation

Hardwood flooring should be acclimatized within the room with the heating turned on for a minimum of 5 days prior to installation. While wood flooring can be fully bonded to the sub-floor, there is always the chance that moisture content in the screed could rise at some point, which could cause the adhesive to fail. Our preference is to install over a moisture retardant underlay using the 'floating floor' method.

The heating should be turned down to 18 degrees C while the floor is being installed and then for four days after.

Final Considerations

1. Increasing or decreasing temperature levels should be done at 5 degrees C per day sequences.

2. Rugs should not be used over heated wooden flooring. These have the effect of increasing the wood temperature to unacceptable levels and will cause failure.

3. Opening joints cannot be avoided when using heated sub-floors, and the end user must accept far greater seasonable movement.

4. The carbon film electric underfloor heating is the safest and most economical periodic type of wood floor heating, as this is a lower more even heat with little likelihood of below floor temperature levels being exceeded.

5. Please be aware that are many thousands of installations of wood flooring installed above all types of floor heating giving supreme user comfort and no problems whatsoever.

David is a director at Birbek Floors Ltd, . UK distributors of hardwood flooring since 1982. Birbek have been assembling and distributing made to plan electric underfloor heating, for wooden floors in their own dedicated workroom since 1998 flooring

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2012年7月14日星期六

Choosing and Installing Solid Oak and Ash Floors

When building or restructuring a house a big attention must be paid to the choice of the materials used. The choice of high quality solid wood floors means care and the importance of the property. It is impressive how solid wood floors change the value of the house or office, and the prejudice that solid wood oak and ash floors is the most expensive alternative of a flooring surface is no longer valid.

With the development of efficient technology and eco-sustainable policy, meaning that a new tree is always planted on the place of an old one, it is possible to optimize costs, thus decreasing a price of a final product significantly.

Some home and office owners state that it is not only important to buy a solid wood flooring, but it is also important to install it in a correct way, in order not to make it raise and thus be damaged at a later stage. It is, of course, an important consideration, but it is important to keep in mind the following aspects:

If solid oak and ash floors are of the highest quality, they are unlikely to give any problems at all even in a century;

Smaller solid wood floor boards are unlikely to change their shape and they react significantly less in respect to large, long and wide wooden boards, which often change their shape even before being installed, as wood is sensible to humidity and temperature alterations. Smaller wooden boards maintain their production shape under any conditions;

It is important to choose a highly professional wooden floor installers, who are aware of different wooden floor installation methods: using nails, using glue or floating, and who are able to advise and realize different wooden boards installation designs, adding even a more sophisticated and different look to every room. It is necessary to remember, that once installed, solid oak floors may expand up to 3 mm per square meter, and solid ash floor may expand up to 7 mm per square meter, thus it is of vital importance to leave enough space for these floors to make them move and adjust. Professional solid wood installers are certainly aware of these facts and will leave enough space under the skirting.

Keeping in mind the information presented above, you will not encounter any problems with the high quality solid wood floor after it has been installed. And it has not only an esthetic advantage that it is more beautiful and more natural material than many other flooring surfaces, but it also is necessary to remember and pay attention to the fact that solid wood floors are easy to clean, they are hygienic, and they last for centuries without any need to be replaced. They add a great value to your property and the flooring surface always looks like as if it has been installed a day before.

Top Parquet Ltd offers Wide range of solid wood flooring [http://www.top-parquet.com/] for residential & commercial purposes.

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2012年3月9日星期五

Installing Hardwood Flooring Over Concrete and Wood Sub Floors

Expansion & Contraction of Hardwood Flooring

"The flooring shop said to leave 10mm for solid wood floor expansion at the walls...now the boards are lifting off the floor." Ill informed advice like this often leads to floor problems. Many flooring sales people unfamiliar with solid wood flooring assume expansion is the same as laminate flooring. In reality that 10mm is not enough for solid wood flooring.

What Is An Expansion Area? Why Do We Need It?

Expansion areas are spaces left around the perimeter of rooms, against fixed objects such as columns, thresholds, hearths, skirting boards, and other stationary items built or secured into the framing structure of the home. Even though Hardwood flooring used is no longer living and breathing it still reacts to moisture changes in the environment. The cells in the solid wood will take on or absorb moisture when the relative humidity is high, or when exposed to water. Expansion takes place, and the hardwood grows, for lack of a clearer term, across the grain (width) of the plank (see below, not all will react this way). Conversely when air moisture levels decrease, moisture content evaporates, shrinking of the solid wood will occur.

When we say spaces, they are defined as installing the hardwood flooring up to and away from the fixed objects. For example; "we recommend at least 15mm small to medium area-18mm expansion on larger areas at the skirting board or wall if new skirting to be fitted."

Hardwood flooring can react to the presence of moisture. In the dry winter heating months, moisture can leave the wood flooring causing the floor to contract slightly in size, which can leave slight gaps between each floor board. In the summer months when the humidity is higher, the hardwood flooring will expand and the gaps will disappear. If there is too much moisture in the subfloor it will cause the wood planks to cup, or buckle. Nearly all problems related to hardwood flooring are due to improper installation and sub floor preparation. This is why it is important when installing hardwood flooring that you follow the correct recommended installation methods by the manufacturer.

Direct Glue Installations

A direct glue installation requires the use of a flooring adhesive applied directly onto the subfloor (never directly apply to the boards). This method can be used on concrete and wooden subfloors. When done correctly this is the most stable method for fitting solid wood flooring as the elastic flooring adhesive allows the floor to expand and contract with no problems.

If you are laying over a concrete subfloor you will first need checked the concrete moisture, if the floor has a moisture content of over 4% then either wait until the sub floor dries to meet this level or use an appropriate moisture barrier, we recommend Sika Mb Primer to ensure no damp rises up into your new floor.

Also note that new concrete slabs require a minimum of 60 days drying time before covering them with a wood floor.

All Concrete sub-floors must be dry, smooth, level and free of structural defects. If the concrete sub floor is uneven we recommend using sika latex self leveling compound to level the subfloor. The concrete must also be free of contaminants i.e. paint, oil, wax grease, dirt and curing compounds (the reason for this is that you need the self leveling compound to bond to the sub floor).These may be removed chemically or mechanically as your local hardware store and they will sell you the correct floor cleaner, but do not use solvent-based strippers under any circumstances. The use of residual solvents can create problems with the bonding of flooring adhesives. It is important to ensure a proper bond between the adhesives and concrete and wood panels.

If you have a wooden subfloor you will need to lay a plywood base over the existing floor boards (we recommend using 4mm -6mm exterior grade plywood and screw down every 15cm along the edges and at 20cm intervals throughout the rest of the board using the 1 inch deck screws) before installation, this will then give you a smooth and level surface for you to install you hardwood flooring onto.

You will need to leave a 15mm expansion gap around the perimeter of the room for large areas over 6 meters in length we recommend 18mm expansion gap. To maintain this gap during installation spacers are provided in the kits. After you have installed the hardwood floor you can cover this expansion gap with scotia or new skirting boards The 15mm expansion gap also needs to be left in doorways where the hardwood floor follows through from one room to another we sell on this website a full range of door profiles available to match your floor.

Nailed Down Installations

Nailed down installation is the traditional way to install hardwood floors and can be done either directly onto wooden subfloor or on a concrete subfloor with the use of battens. When fixing battens onto concrete you will need a power-actuated nailer to drive through the battens and fix directly into the concrete, firstly lay out polyethylene moisture sheet then plywood over the battens to create a new sub floor. We recommend 12mm exterior grade plywood and 2inch x 4inch battens. Lay battens around perimeter at ½ inch from the wall, leave ¼ inch gap at each end. Position the first batten so its centre is 16 inches from the outside edge of the perimeter batten. Lay out the remaining battens across the area 16 inch intervals. Always check you battens are level using a level gauge you may need to use cedar shims to level out dips in the concrete, slide the shims under the battens until level. (If in doubt we recommend consulting a professional fitter for this method).

Wooden Subfloor

Hardwood floors can be nailed into existing wooden subfloors such as floorboards or plywood but not into chipboard floors as these are not strong enough to hold the nails. The floorboards must be in good condition and level if not it is advisable to lay 6mm exterior grade plywood down first.

To avoid creaking, check over the subfloor and securely fasten any loose floorboards. For added soundproofing it is also advisable to use a standard foam underlay.

When you nail down a solid wood floor you use a Porta Nailer to drive a nail at a 30 degree angle through the tongue and into the subfloor. Porta Nailers can be hired from any good hire shop but are expensive to buy.

Again you will need to leave a 15mm expansion gap around the perimeter of the room. To maintain this gap during installation spacers are provided in the installation kits.

After you have installed the floor you can cover this expansion gap with scotia or new skirting boards.The 15mm expansion gap also needs to be left in doorways where the floor follows through from one room to another; we sell full range of door profiles available to match your floor on this website.

WASTAGE

When ordering your new floor we recommend you allow for some wastage due to cuts a professional fitter would add on an extra 2%-5% of flooring needed to finish a job. We recommend non professional fitter should add on 5%-10%.

for futher information visit our website where you can also buy the wood flooring online at http://www.ukflooring4less.co.uk/

written by Mr David Kitto
http://www.ukflooring4less.co.uk/

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2012年3月1日星期四

Epoxy Floors - The Right Floor Insulation

The best part about epoxy floors is that they last many decades! If you take care of each step, everything will be fine. You can easily learn how to maintain your epoxy floor. It is a matter of being constant, responsible and willing to learn. You will notice that it doesn't involve high maintenance, and luckily, they can last forever. You won’t need to replace your floors so many times. Water damage won’t take place so you can have peace of mind. Yet, you might want to be aware about humidity conditions- especially if your place climate is not so good. In addition, you can check reviews to make a wise choice. As you may already know, epoxy flooring is great for workplaces and garages.

If you have no floor insulation, you are losing one thing for sure - the heat through your floor! If you have epoxy flooring in your garage then floor insulation is easy to get and you can do it yourself. In order to do it right, you need to understand why insulation is so important. First of all, by losing heat you lose money. That is because you will definitely need extra heat for the rooms that have common walls with your garage. So that is costly, considering you will have to do it every winter. Also, if your garage is your little workshop, you will definitely not be able to work under a state of stress and freezing temperature.

Considerations

Before thinking about the epoxy floor insulation, there are other things to take in consideration first. The state and irregularities of the epoxy floor, the need to heat the floor, the insulation resistance to heavy weights and the protection of you floor against humidity and degradation caused by fungus and dampness. However, epoxy is much better than concrete so you won't have much trouble in terms of impermeability, etc.

Before getting specific floor insulation, you will first need to prepare your epoxy floors. If you have problems with humidity, you need to solve these problems first. Make sure your floor is level as well, as you might have to dig or play the builder role to ensure a smooth and level floor. Also, you need to measure the distance between the floor and ceiling. It has to be around 7 meters. Make sure adding a few extra inches will not harm too much, everything has to go like before.

Now that you have everything ready, it is time for the floor treatment, which is prior to the garage floor matter. First of all, get the floor clean. Take out all the dusty stuff, let the sun come in and then vacuum the epoxy floor. Close your garage and vacuum it again. You don't need any dust. Add then a 6 millimeter layer of polyethylene.

Treating the floor is definitely easy and fun and garage floor insulation is not so hard at all! Yet, if the process appears to be somehow difficult it can be done in a few different ways. Ideally, it would be to get a professional to help you.

Are you trying to find out more information about epoxy flooring? Visit http://www.epoxyflooring.info/ for more information.

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2012年1月17日星期二