Is engineered wood flooring unsuitable for bedrooms?

Dear forum members,

we are currently building a house and were at the parquet studio yesterday to look at floor coverings for the upper floor.
On the ground floor, we want to tile everything and have already chosen everything.

On the upper floor, we are faced with the choice of engineered parquet (14mm height, 4mm wear layer) or a better laminate (12mm height).
In terms of feel and appearance, we prefer the engineered parquet.

The salesperson said that since we have underfloor heating, the room temperature with engineered parquet does not drop as quickly in the evening/night if you have heated during the day because the parquet stores the heat much longer compared to laminate.
We also have children's rooms on the upper floor, which will be quite warm during the day, but at night it should of course be cool for sleeping.

Does anyone have experience with whether the room temperature is really that difficult to regulate with engineered parquet?

Thank you in advance.

Such nonsense. The heat is a) in the screed and the walls and b) you can't really speak of speed with underfloor heating anyway. (I assume you will get one - but even with radiators, it's not really different)

The floor covering doesn't matter.

Uihu why are such people allowed to advise customers. It is naturally complete nonsense as my predecessor already correctly says.

That might have been a reason 40 years ago, but back then there was also a 40-degree supply temperature in the underfloor heating and the feet were boiling. That doesn't exist anymore today.

Hello,

Now the seller said that since we have underfloor heating, the room temperature with engineered wood flooring does not drop so quickly in the evening/night if you heated during the day, because the parquet stores heat much longer compared to laminate.
We also have children’s rooms on the upper floor, where it will be quite warm during the day, but at night it should of course be cool for sleeping.

What a load of bull***t.... That store would be completely off my list due to the seller’s total incompetence.

[*]The heat storage capacity of the parquet is completely irrelevant compared to that of the screed and the walls.
[*]What matters is the thermal resistance, meaning the parquet must not insulate too much. There is a limit value you should also stick to. But if the manufacturer has approved the parquet for underfloor heating, then it’s fine. With a thickness of 14 mm for the parquet, you should check that again, it could be borderline.
[*]Forget the idea that you will have large temperature differences between day and night. If you turn off the heating in the evening, the temperature difference until the next day will be maybe 1 degree. No more. Cozy warm during the day and cool for sleeping at night is not possible in a new building. Unless you leave the windows open, but then you don’t even need to build new, you might as well take some drafty old building.

A tip from my own experience: I would always glue engineered wood flooring, whereas laminate can be wonderfully installed floating. Parquet simply expands much more with fluctuations in humidity and then starts creaking. That gets really annoying and you can only fix it by gluing it down. Since laminate expands less, you don’t have that effect.

Best regards,

Andreas

The heat storage capacity of the parquet is completely irrelevant compared to that of the screed and the walls.

Good to know! Maybe the salesperson exaggerated a bit.

[*]What matters is the thermal resistance, meaning the parquet must not insulate too much. There is a limit value you should also adhere to. But if the manufacturer has approved the parquet for underfloor heating, then that’s fine. With a height of 14 mm for the parquet, you should check that again, it might be borderline.

We will do that again. But 14 mm was already the thinnest thickness for the engineered parquet in that store.

[*]Forget the idea that you have large temperature differences between day and night. If you turn off the heating in the evening, it might be about 1 degree until the next day. No more. Cozy warmth during the day and cool for sleeping at night does not work in a new building. Unless you leave the windows open, but then you don’t need a new building and might as well take some drafty old building.

Yes, I have heard that too. But we like to sleep cooler at night. So apparently nothing else remains but to leave the window open.

A tip from my own experience: I would always glue down engineered parquet, whereas laminate can be wonderfully installed floating. Parquet simply reacts much more to fluctuations in humidity and then starts creaking. That really becomes annoying and you can only prevent it by gluing it down. Because laminate reacts less, you don’t have this effect there.

Yes, that was recommended to us as well. We would definitely glue down the parquet if we decide on it.

A floating floor installed over underfloor heating consumes energy because a lot of air acts as an insulator. So it is not exactly ideal.