Can parquet be
laid on under-floor
heating systems?
Wood flooring can now be safely laid on under-floor heating systems. The important thing is to make sure the choice of product is based on technically rational criteria, and, of course, aesthetics. The ideal parquet for under-floor heating systems must have a blend of two requisites. First of all it must have high dimensional stability to be able to resist the stress of temperature changes. Second, it must have a low thermal resistance to ensure the best heat radiation and thus energy savings. Its stability is greatly influenced by the type of construction. When it comes to keeping its shape, resisting warping, there is no doubt: multilayer engineered parquet is always better than a traditional product. And among the multilayered floors, those with a broadleaf tree support (with a finer and more compact weave like birch) are superior to those with a conifer support (with a wider weave like pine, for example) because they transfer heat more efficiently. And it gets even better if the high resistance support can also guarantee the greatest stability with the least thickness.
And how should it be laid?
For the same reasons we mentioned before, the best performance is obtained when the parquet is solidly glued to the sub-floor. Compared with a floating floor, it offers both the most efficient heat radiation and best product stability. In a nutshell, here is the identikit of the perfect wood flooring laid on a radiant heating system: improved stability parquet with a low multilayer birch support with crosscuts for gluing.
It bears an amazing resemblance to the patent awarded to Prof. Guglielmo Giordano. And that is no coincidence.
JAPANESE STRESS TEST
Listone Giordano was the first parquet in the world with a 5 mm thick top layer to have brilliantly passed the incredibly strict Tokyo Gas test. During this test, Listone Giordano planks were subjected to 300 consecutive hours of stress testing on a base with grooves where 80°C water circulated. It was an extreme condition, one that should obviously not be reproduced in common applications, but it was also highly indicative in terms of performance assessment. Listone Giordano parquet should only ever be laid on modern low-temperature radiating heat systems where the surface temperature of the wood does not exceed 29°C, as required by the current technical regulations.