Hardwood Over Radiant Heat

Dave Buskirk

Any experience nailing solid or engineered hardwood over radient hot water heating tubes stapled under 3/4 subfloor. I think we should stay away from it. Client doesn't want floating floor - doesn't like the sound of walking on it. Says he can live with any small cracks from moisture changes.

Steve Unkie

I've done a few, with no problems. One guy in the crawl with a long drill bit and one guy up top with spray paint. Guy down below drills up at every danger zone and the other guy marks it. BE CAREFUL :-]

Steve.

Dave Buskirk

Steve, good thought but this one will have a finished basement under it. Suppose they can do some marking before drywall goes up. Could it be as simple as using shorter nails and being careful with angle? I am just a designer, don't have to get into these kinds of details often - like you guys do when the designer overlooks something.

knottyfloors

I work with radient heat 90% of the time. My rules are that the heat is on long before the floor goes down to make sure that the whole house is dry, try and keep the width of the floor under 5", make sure the wood is acclimated to the house before it is installed, and use 1 1/2 staples for staple up tubes and 1 1/4 nails. It is extemely important that the heat is on, don't let the plumber tell you it doesn't matter.

Dave Buskirk

KnottyFloors, we are in the same neck of the woods I'm in Colorado Springs. You're making me feel a little more comfortable with nail down over the stapled tubing! Do you put in both solid and engineered floors? What kind of underlayment is best?

Thanks

knottyfloors

I rarely do engineered floors, they look like fake floors. I mostly do solid wood floors. You should try to dry the floors to around 6% moisture, thats what in-floor heat will dry it to. If I can get customers to play by my rules I feel confident I can produce a very stable floor. Use rosin paper since it's over a basement and if you used felt paper it could possibly smell when heated. Anything over 6" wide should be glued down with a pl400.