Flooring for Which Room / Ideas & Tips

Of course, it is partly subjective... We have tiles in the bathrooms and hallway, the rest is parquet, so a good comparison is possible. The parquet is always significantly more pleasant to walk on in terms of both temperature and feel. The heating is naturally the same everywhere on or off.

Especially during the transition period, when the underfloor heating is completely off, the tiles are not pleasantly tempered (of course, you can manage somehow, but it is definitely much more comfortable), while the parquet is very pleasant to walk on. How should it work otherwise... The floor covering can at most reach room temperature without running underfloor heating. Due to the high thermal conductivity of tiles, you notice the temperature immediately.

If anyone wants to tell me that 22-degree warm tiles are really pleasant to walk on without slippers, I would also recommend showering at 22 degrees, that saves a lot of energy (example is flawed, of course).

New building, pleasantly warm.

My experience: painted surfaces scratch quickly and you can't repair them like with oiled ones.

My experience:

We have brushed and oiled wild oak floorboards, so a very variable, lively surface – so far you can't see any scratches. Not that they don't exist – you just hardly notice them.

On the other hand, if you have a relatively uniform, monotone wood surface – preferably even painted, which might look elegant to some – it is also more expensive, for others more boring, and in any case visually more prone to scratches and scuffs.

Cork is rather bad for underfloor heating.

Why should that be?

Poor heat transfer as cork insulates.

Poor heat transfer because cork insulates.

That may be generally correct, but we are talking here about 1 cm of flooring (possibly with an HDF carrier board, etc.) and not 15 cm thick insulation boards. Once the floor is warmed up, it stores heat excellently. Since underfloor heating is only switched off seasonally and otherwise runs at a constant temperature, cork is excellent in winter. Current cork/cork vinyl has thermal resistance values of 0.06 and less. It is clear that you can’t catch up to tiles with these values, but nowadays saying in general that cork is "less" or "unsuitable" for underfloor heating is, in my opinion, a big myth.