Warm water floor of a country house. Heated floors in a country house. What is underfloor heating for?

Choosing the right flooring for your home can be difficult because there are so many options. Your choice will depend on the room the floor is intended for, the type of food you like, and the amount of foot traffic that the floor material will be exposed to.

Electric floor heating

If you have pets or children between the ages of five and sixteen, you will need a durable flooring material such as hardwood treated with a thick protective coating, high density carpet, short carpet, perhaps a commercial grade, polished concrete, or wear-resistant non-porous tiles.

Step 1 - List Your Flooring Needs

So which floor is perfect for you? Listed below are the four main steps you need to follow to make sure you've chosen the right floor. You need to consider things like your family: Do you have children? What is the overall feel of the room? Do you want something warm and cozy, something very durable or something elegant?

What is best for kitchen floors?

Soft floor coverings that are comfortable to stand up from bare feet. Floors that prevent breakage when cups and plates fall. Something warm underfoot "I spend hours in the kitchen." Easily clean, "I hate messy spaces between tiles." Floors that the dog did not destroy.

What's good for halls?

Something soft on my two-year-old "knees". See how these requirements exclude tiles, wood, seagrass, and concrete, but do they offer products like rubber, vinyl, cork, and linoleum? Something sleek, hardwearing, and durable. This space needs to be vibrant and funky. This first step is really important and it helps you eliminate foods that don't fit your lifestyle.

Step 2 - Explore Flooring Options

Concrete is a mixture of aggregate, water and cement. The concrete has been hand polished since Roman times and the effect looks like a very shiny uncoated glass surface. Polished concrete is currently seeing a resurgence of interest as a contemporary floor covering in residential and commercial architecture.

Traditionally, concrete floors have been used as the base for various floor coverings, otherwise known as "overlays". Often, ongoing maintenance and eventual replacement of overlays can be costly compared to one particular application. Sleek and modern, polished concrete floors have great aggregate flexibility. These fills can include automotive parts, rocks, glass, and bling.

Rubber flooring is the "coolest" architectural product, not only in terms of current trends, but also in terms of thermal quality. Cold in summer and much warmer in winter than ceramic tile, natural stone and concrete. Rubber is great for toddlers and crawling babies and it will also reduce breakage.

A tiled floor can last many decades if you choose a timeless style. Tiles can be made from ceramic or porcelain and are one of the few flooring products that will help keep your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It works through thermal massage, which takes effect when the concrete slab is directly on the ground. The tiles are laid directly on the slab, allowing the reasonably constant ground temperature to permeate through the floor and into your home.

If you have children under the age of six, cork is best product for your home. It's soft on the knees and heads, it's warm and soft underfoot, and you can throw a glass on it and see the glass rebound. Cork is a unique product that is not too expensive. It can look like chocolate concrete and is great for large noisy areas that require soundproofing to absorb noise. The cork is covered with a polyurethane cover, just like regular wood floors.

Bamboo is a sustainable product that is growing rapidly in countries such as Indonesia, which supplies most of the bamboo flooring sold in Australia. Bamboo is amazingly durable and much harder than traditional hardwood floors. Bamboo has the same range of colors as wood and most of the floors are fully clad so there are no sealing costs.

How does the floor get warm?

When choosing which carpet to buy, consider the type, traffic, risk of staining, acoustic properties, and cleaning and maintenance. If you have a young family, choose a dark acrylic, non-marking, compact, short-cut rug to keep warm. It's worth noting that a cut pile may look shiny due to its uniform length, but if you choose to loop a loop, the light will bounce off at different angles, reducing the sheen of the carpets.

The choice of lumber has changed a lot over the last 20 years due to availability and new products. Many people love the idea of ​​natural wood oak flooring, but this option is now very expensive. And don't think the redesigned version is cheaper, it's usually the other way around. There is a high demand for recycled wood flooring as today's wood is usually young and cut into smaller sizes for high demand. Today's wood is usually inferior in strength and durability to slow growing trees centuries ago.

Floating wood veneer and parquet products are also becoming very popular. Hardwood laminate is a much more economical option than solid wood flooring, and there are some laminates that you will have other than real problems with. Laminated products are not cheap as they are fantastic products in their own right. Many laminates can be very durable, long wearing and easy to keep clean, but be careful as this is not the case with all laminates.

Natural stones are lustrous for longevity and can provide a timeless look. Limestone and granite are the most widely used stones for indoor use. Sandstone can be used and can look fabulous, but it is very porous. There are three basic sandstone finishes, rough, sanded and polished, they all look good, but the polished option with a heavy sealant or epoxy finish is The best way ensure appearance your sex in the long run.

There are so many composite stone solutions on the market. Some of them are pre-made abroad, while some, such as terrazzo, are made to order. Prefabricated pieces are generally less expensive than terrazzo because they combine natural stones and other organic products such as sinks with acrylic resins. Now many terrazzos are resin based and warm to the touch.

Chipboard or yellow tongue floors

Chipboard or chipboard commonly used in residential construction as a base on which a floor is applied. This product is underrated as a finished flooring product, but it can look amazing. The raw product is sanded, painted and coated in the same way as wooden floors. To ensure that the product does not turn yellow over the years, a black tint should be added to the polyurethane coating.

Step 3 - Floor Maintenance Requirements

Many wood floors are now resistant to staining, scratching and other damage due to a new generation of sealants. Similar to carpets, thanks to technology, you can now find many non-marking carpets, or you can simply scan to select a dark carpet to hide stains. Products such as polished concrete and tiles have very little support once sealed. They are also easy to clean and will last forever.