A cold floor is one of the very popular problems that worries many residents of our state. But any, even a very nasty question, if there is a desire, can be solved. And cold laminate is no exception. The main thing is to determine the cause of this phenomenon and remove it. After all, the difficulty does not necessarily hide in the unfortunate location of the room. You don't even see yourself that your floor can get warm with a little tweak.
Laminate floors
The main causes of cold floor covering
- Very often, the cracks and gaps between the panels are considered the basis of excess cold in the floor area. It is very easy to get rid of them. For example, you can use an ordinary putty composition, and after the place where the mixture is applied, cover it with floor paint or varnish. You can also carefully cut the slots a little and drive in the appropriate size pieces of wood. After sanding the surface to be repaired and covering it with paint or floor varnish, virtually nothing will be visible.
- Not it is worth forgetting about the fact that a warm floor will never be, if its base is distinguished by high moisture and dampness. To remove this problem, it is recommended to lay an ordinary polyethylene film under the insulation material. However, if the issue has not been closed, experts recommend completely abandoning the vents, and organizing the ventilation of the underground specifically in the house itself.
Polymeric ethylene laying under the heat insulator
- Another disadvantage may be the presence of a reduced layer of material for insulation. Depending on what kind of heat insulator you used, take a look in the instructions for its use, what thickness must be organized.
The main thing! In this case, you do not need to chicken the entire coating. To make the floor warm, you can simply remove one panel in a not very noticeable place and measure the thickness of the material for insulation with a typical metal ruler.
- Also not it is worth forgetting about a cold foundation. Nobody is immune from this.
- Do not forget that cold laminate flooring itself. This is due to the fact that its top layer for decoration has a high heat conductivity, compared to a wooden floor. What to do in this option - you ask yourself a question. Simply place cork underneath the laminate flooring. It will give you the opportunity to keep warm. Or use in other words "underfloor heating".
- No matter how amazing it may sound, but never it is worth forgetting about the physical phenomenon of absorption of infrared radiation. Because the laminate is very thermally conductive, it transmits warm rays and heats the underground. To prevent this, you can lay sheets of foil under the covering.
Foil laying for laminate
- And our tactile senses cannot be left unnoticed. Professionals say that flooring gives a person a feeling of coldness, although this is simply a lack of warmth. Different materials differ in their characteristic heat absorption from different sources. All this is supplied to change the overall balance. And that surface seems a little warmer if it takes in heat more slowly.
Do not tolerate constant cold floors. You need to make a little effort and turn on your imagination so that your every morning starts with pleasant and warm feelings.
To get rid of the problem for good cold laminate, you can insulate it. This is exactly what the following video says in detail:
How to remove gaps between laminate boards
It is no secret that laminate is the most popular of all floor coverings. It is in demand due to its unique properties, as well as its unpretentiousness and affordable price. This material is made from compressed wood fibers, so it partly has the properties of natural wood. It does not belong to cold materials, therefore, in the summer, it creates an extremely pleasant sensation underfoot. But in the winter months, you also want to walk barefoot, without the unpleasant consequences associated with a cold. Therefore, it is important to know how to warm up your laminate flooring.
The first thing that comes to mind is to install a warm floor. But such a reconstruction is a troublesome business, and the materials and cost of work will result in a round sum. In addition, it is best to install an infrared underfloor heating under the laminate, since other types of heating will be less effective. This is due to the fact that the laminate does not transmit heat well, since it (together with the substrate) is to some extent a heat insulator.
A great alternative to the laborious and expensive installation of a warm floor in some cases is a warm underlay for the laminate.
What is a backing and why is it needed
Modern laminate flooring is often sold with a ready-made bottom layer, but despite this, a warm underlay remains extremely popular and is in demand among buyers. When choosing a substrate, it is not necessary to give preference to one that is produced by the same manufacturer as the laminate itself. The main thing is to choose from the whole variety the option that is right for your situation, based on the operating conditions.
Types of warm substrates
Made of foamed polyethylene foam. It has a porous structure and is in all hardware stores, since it has a very valuable property from the point of view of the consumer - a reasonable price and good quality. Polyethylene foam is prized for its moisture resistance. It has good antistatic properties, but it does not have a good level of sound insulation. Laying such a substrate is simple: it is easy to cut and takes the desired shape. The disadvantage of the material is considered its "fear" of direct sunlight, as well as the fact that in the process of use, the substrate gradually becomes thinner.
Made of expanded polystyrene. It has all the positive qualities of polyethylene foam, but is more durable. Of all synthetic insulation materials, it is she who is recommended by experienced finishers as a warm underlay for laminate flooring.
The varieties of cork backing include:
- Rubber cork. It is a mixture of rubber and cork chips passed through a press.
- Bituminous cork. Made by applying cork chips to prepared paper impregnated with bitumen. This material has waterproofing properties.
Felt. It happens from natural felt or rope and artificial. The thickness varies from 1 to 4 mm. Such a backing has a soft base, which helps it quickly level off on the floor surface, and many air bubbles in the backing structure make it warm.
Compositional. Consists of several synthetic components.
Before starting work, you should thoroughly clean the floor from debris and dust. The substrate must be dry. A polyethylene film is laid on it. This is necessary for waterproofing. Then proceed to the flooring of the substrate.
Note! If the substrate is corrugated, it must be laid with the corrugation down. If one side of the substrate has a layer of foil, it is laid with the foil facing up.
To cut the substrate, you will need a construction knife, but it will not be superfluous to first mark the material with a marker and a ruler, so as not to be mistaken with the dimensions.
The substrate, regardless of whether it is rolled or sheet, should always be laid strictly in the same direction as the future laminate panels. The underlay is placed end-to-end on the floor without overlap and without the use of glue. It is recommended to fix the edges with tape or construction tape.
Note! It is not necessary to lay the substrate in two layers, this will not make the floor warmer, but the lock connection on the panels may become unusable. In addition, under load, a too thick substrate will miss, it will be inconvenient to walk on such a floor, the boards will deform and wear out quickly. Therefore, one layer 1–4 mm thick will be sufficient.
Video
More details about the types of substrates and installation features of each type in the video:
It is a versatile floor covering that is suitable for almost all spaces. However, in winter, it needs insulation. We will tell you what kind of insulation is better for laminate flooring below.
You can use one of three methods to insulate laminate floors.
Underfloor heating system
Heated laminate floors are the simplest, but also the most expensive, way to insulate. Foil or infrared insulation can be used as a heating system. This option is not in demand only in cases where there is a sharp temperature drop. This leads to damage to the system.
To install a "warm floor" requires knowledge of all the subtleties. The system must have a thermostat. After installing heated floors, add 5 ° C daily until a temperature of +15 degrees is reached.
Using a warm underlay under the laminate
In some cases, it is not necessary to use additional insulating material and a simple backing is sufficient. It is important to choose the right one. It can be of several types: cork, isolone, polystyrene, etc. The most environmentally friendly is cork backing, and the most durable is polystyrene.
When laying the underlay, it is important that the surface is level, without minor flaws or cracks. A choice of different material thicknesses is available: from 2 to 10 mm. If you have chosen a dense cork backing, then it should be laid on polyethylene.
Styrofoam or expanded polystyrene with backing
If you want to get an insulated laminate on a floor with a base of wooden logs or concrete, you must adhere to certain technologies. For flooring, foam or expanded polystyrene with a thickness of 20 mm is used, which are attached to each other through a thorn-groove system. On top of such a structure, a substrate or plywood is laid, and then a laminated coating.
Tramp
18.12.2008, 17:23
Half-laminate, tell me how to insulate, just very cold
Annakondochka
18.12.2008, 17:53
You can put under it a thick substrate, 8-10 mm, or - which is better, but quite a bit more expensive - a cork. It is necessary to remove it, lay the substrate, then put it back.
25.12.2008, 18:28
Make warm floors, for example - Caleo. Easy to install and keep the floor warm
Anisimov
04.01.2009, 21:57
The first advice on insulation is not correct. The laminate is cold due to the high specific heat of the material. The substrate on which the laminate is laid is already a fairly good thermal insulator. The reason is especially the perception of cold by humans. For instance; metal and polystyrene, heated to 20 gr. Celsius, a person will perceive cold and warm, respectively.
Future mom
15.02.2009, 12:59
What is your opinion on CALEO floors ?? Should they be laid on a pre-leveled floor?
02.03.2009, 13:33
Entrepreneur, Laminate Hut shop. I tell you: a laminated floor will definitely be warmer when using a 7mm thick Isoplaat underlay, and a regular roll 3mm foamed polyethylene has no quality characteristics at all. In addition to isoplate made of pressed shavings, I recommend a cork or isonord (foam 3 or 5.5 mm). The most reliable information is the feedback from our clients.
Anisimov
02.03.2009, 21:41
Sergei Chubatyuk, it is possible to raise the temperature of the laminate due to the heat-insulating substrate only when heat is leaking through the floor. For an apartment building in which the laminate is lying on top of someone's ceiling, your advice is useless. You can bet that your clients' reviews or the physicist are stronger. But I won't, the client is always right.
Hopelessly in love
08.11.2009, 10:53
Can someone tell me, what if you make a heated floor in your house in the steam room? Is this option possible?
Anisimov
08.11.2009, 17:25
Tatyana, this is both possible and correct. In the case of electrical heating, care must be taken when choosing a location for the temperature sensor.
Brunette
18.12.2009, 04:43
We solved this problem - we live in our house and the heating is completely "walled up" in the floor - the metal-plastic pipe (15-bends well) was laid with a snake on a sawdust-concrete pillow, then a screed, a substrate and a laminate. The bathroom is tiled. All connections are in secluded places, but at the top, in case of a leak. Boiler and pump. Cheap and cool!
03.03.2010, 19:31
everything is very simple, you need to use "teprofol" instead of a substrate (insulation, falsified on a foam basis) will serve as both a substrate and insulate your floor.
Alekseichev
14.09.2010, 21:14
It is correct to make a warm floor not from metal-plastic, but from a corrugated stainless steel pipe! In metal, heat transfer is higher and the guarantee is life-long (for a walled pipe, this is important!)!
Lambargini
03.11.2010, 06:02
Mikhail, it turns out there is no point in insulating the floor, will the laminate be cold anyway? I have a first floor and I planned to sheathe the saw from the side called with foam ...
Anisimov
05.11.2010, 07:28
Abdulgalim, it always makes sense to insulate the floor if there is a low temperature under the floor. If the laminate has a temperature of 20g, it will still feel cold to bare feet. And if, in the absence of floor insulation, the laminate will have a temperature of 16 grams. then it will take heat from the air in the room and carry this heat away under the ceiling.
Anisimov
05.11.2010, 07:37
Sergei Medvedev, underfloor heating DOES NOT REQUIRE high thermal conductivity of the pipe material. Don't pass off your fantasies as real experiences. If the thermal conductivity of the floor heating pipe is high, then the water flowing through the pipe will cool down extremely quickly. Why the heating of the floor will become noticeably uneven. When using stainless steel, a significant increase in the flow rate in the pipe will be required in order to reduce the carrier delta to the prescribed 5 degrees.
Aleksakhin
06.11.2010, 01:34
The problem of this flooring * is in the vapor insulation * properties :)
Alekseichev
07.11.2010, 20:34
Mikhail Istratov! I, unlike you, do not fantasize and my goal was not to be smart like you! You are not in the subject at all! I have floors like this at home - it's a real experience! The pipe must have a high heat transfer !!! Because it has to warm up !!! And not to drive water in a circle and burn a source of energy (in this case, gas) into an idle. This is simple physics! And the DELTA OF THE CARRIER is the fruit of an inflamed consciousness! If you are so worried about the uniformity of floor heating (which I do not observe at home), lay the pipe in the form of a snail, and not in the form of a snake! Your advice is good for economy class renovations, but no more! The premium class uses other materials that you probably have not heard! Corrugated stainless steel pipe produced in South Korea is made specifically for warm floors, it is extremely rarely used because of its price (about 120 rubles per meter), as well as because of the biggest and most common trouble in our country - Foolishness and ignorance. Moreover, the presence of crusts and education is usually not the same!
Alekseichev
07.11.2010, 20:48
It is best to make warm floors from wooden pipes !!))) The water will not cool down and everything will be fine with DELTA!: - D
Anisimov
07.11.2010, 22:24
Sergei Medvedev, maybe Yuzh. Korea is a zone free of "Foolishness and ignorance", but there is also a whole Europe, which has both a carrier delta and many years of experience in installing floor heating, which is not available in the South. Korea. Corrugated stainless pipe is used in heating in the form of quick-assembly kits for piping boiler equipment, as well as in the form of ready-made insulated pipelines, known in Russia under the Casaflex brand. Your arguments speak of a complete lack of understanding of the processes, which is usually characteristic of traders. You can continue to sprinkle with rudeness, I do not dispute with the hucksters. Trade further, but the provincial bazaar is the border that your stainless steel will not go beyond, unless the patronage of local authorities helps. Under pressure from the district administration, the services will buy this rotten stuff. And without support, this stainless steel will not be successful, like other trends in the Seoul trading house. The heating materials market in Russia has become much more civilized. Rehau sewn polyethylene survives the market for cheap metal-reinforced plastics, which, fifteen years ago, themselves survived this Pex with their low price. Even the passion for Virsbo products has gone by in just five to six years. The same can be said for polybutylene pipes. Market leaders are more visible than ever before. South Korea is in the zone of the so-called American technical influence. American heating technologies are even more backward than American cars. This influence will always be a drag on South Korea. This is especially evident in the invention of bicycles - heating boilers with an efficiency like a steam locomotive and stupid hot water supply heat exchangers - "pig tails" from a copper pipe, just like in American boilers. A simple screwdriver assembly of clones of European boilers would have been much more successful with a Russian buyer. The Turkish experience confirms my words. Demir Dokum products are easily certified in Russia. These boilers are understandable for service engineers, because built on the familiar element base.
As for underfloor heating, there is a special copper pipe for laying underfloor heating, but ... it is covered with a PVC sheath that protects the copper from friction against the screed and from contacts with the salts of this screed. Nobody burdens himself with the struggle for high thermal conductivity. Well, you need to somehow sell your rotten stuff. Try to interest the installers of gas boilers for apartment heating in them. This is a big chunk of the market.
Alekseichev
07.11.2010, 23:21
Mikhail Istratov! It is not clear for whom you wrote this dispatch, but your goal is clearly not practical help to the group members, but personal ambitions in my direction, built on the fact that you are a resident of Moscow, and I am a region. I think most readers are not so interested in to me! If you want to blow off steam and talk about politics, then you are clearly in another group! I want to upset you on three points at once: 1. I'm not a huckster! 2. I bought a pipe in Moscow! 3. I dripped the pipe under a different brand than you indicated! I indicated the country of manufacture and the price, for example, and not mandatory. In addition, you are bad not only with physics but with chemistry! You can, of course, speculate about the former zone of influence of Luzhkov ... but I will not! You can see that, like most Muscovites, you did not hold anything heavier than a phone in your hands! Some philosophers in whose lexicon you will hear more often than other words: Market, bazaar, rotten stuff, traders, pressure from the administration mixed with an arrogant and arrogant attitude towards those who are not from Moscow and, accordingly, they are ignorant suckers in relations between America and Korea and they all have Underfloor heating with the wrong delta and OXIDIZED stainless steel taken from unsold unsold stock or cut off in the nearest boiler room!
Anisimov
07.11.2010, 23:37
Sergei Medvedev, do not make excuses for denseness. If for you the "DELTA OF THE CARRIER is the fruit of an inflamed consciousness", then I can grieve that all trained heating technicians live with this delirium. ? t "supply - return" for underfloor heating differs from the radiator heating schedule. But this is not a decree for you. All your ambitions are not reduced to the possession of some kind of information, but to faith in a corrugated stainless steel pipe. I do not believe in such a pathology of your mind, there is something else for that.
Anisimov
07.11.2010, 23:55
Sergey, I figured out what to do with you! I invite you to the group of plumbers. It's boring there, you will amuse us.
Alekseichev
08.11.2010, 00:38
I will be TvaimS
08.11.2010, 08:32
Mikhail Istratov! Do not fake the group members! Be smart in another place! If you have something to say about the case, talk. Stop rolling cotton wool!
Alekseichev
08.11.2010, 21:14
By the way, Mikhail and biology are not all right! (See the post below) Styrofoam and metal of the same temperature will be perceived by a person in the same way! The specific heat has nothing to do with it! metal has a higher thermal conductivity (physics grade 5) Mikhail, I do not think that by malicious intent, is misleading everyone. Just like in the scripture: If a blind man leads a blind man, then both will fall into the abyss!
Anisimov
08.11.2010, 21:46
Sergey, I was asked not to "fake", but you successfully cope with it yourself:
"It's just that at the same ambient temperature, metal and foam will have different temperatures, because metal has a higher thermal conductivity (physics class 5)"
Forgive me, Sergei, that I ranked you among the traders. Even traders understand that all objects in this very environment have the same temperature in a steady state.
Alekseichev
10.11.2010, 22:40
You ought to Michael to be engaged in spaceships, and not pipes! Maybe there, in space, there is a steady regime, but not in our apartments! The street wall will always be colder than the interior wall, and the air under the ceiling will be warmer than the floor, although it will strive for a stable balance for an infinitely long time! I hope your eurocanalization elite knows about this!