Have radient heat in slab, want to install hardwood floor in main area and carpet in small bedrooms, any pros and cons? Have heard some tales don’t know which way to go. Thanks.
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Expansion and contraction, and humidity and moisture must be dealt with. Various ways have been discussed here over the years, depending on the specific product you want to install.
Most of what you heard is probably just that Tales. I have radiant throughout my whole house and have hardwood, pergo, tile and carpet. All work with the radiant, some rooms take longer to heat up than others. You can plan for that time with setback or lock the room temp a comfortable number and leave it at that day and night.
Check out http://www.radiantpanelassociation.org
I have a 1200 sf area of slab with radiant, and a hardwood installation is in progress. I wanted my sub to use a glue-down technique using Sika Acoubond (see it at http://www.edelweissflooring.com), but he wouldn't, so we settled on gluing down 3/4" CDX plywood using Bostik's Best urethane glue. I needed 38 sheets of ply at $30 and 10 pails of glue at $195. Not a cheap prep at almost $2.60/sf. The Sika materials will run about $1.75.
Be sure to use either an engineered plank, or a narrow strip (2-1/4") hardwood in one of the species OK for over radiant. Oaks and cherry are OK.
How did you keep the cdx in place until the adhesive could dry ?
Sawed every 4x8 down the long center. Reset the saw blade depth to saw everything but the top ply, and kerf-cut the 2 x 8 undersides on about 12" centers. Handle them with care, they are like spaghetti. Flexible like this, they will lay right down on the glue (which is spread with a 1/4" x 1/4" square notched trowel) without cupping. Keep some weights handy to bear down on any corners or edges that are not down flat. Use 1-1/2 flooring cleats or staples, and fasten your strip flooring atop this base.
We were going to glue down 4x8 sheets of cdx and weigh them down but we never though about cutting them down and giving a kerf to the backside. What a great technique! Thanks for your help!
I just finished a 400Sq Ft addition on our house and have a "staple up" infloor heat system with a strip Oak floor. It works great. The 1/2" lines get stapled up to the bottom of the plywood sub floor then foil faced insulation fills the floor joists, leaving about 2" air space. Our floor has 5 loops off a 1" main line. My plumber installed a floor heat senser and a outside temp senser that varys how fast the pump spins depending on the temp differences. Nothing like warm feet when it's 10 degrees outside!!