A popular and very effective addition to the central heating system – a warm floor – costs the home owner in a considerable amount. But there is a way to save, refusing to hire the installers and putting the floor on your own. True, it is better to do laying before the repair in the apartment is completed – at one of the final stages, when it is time to choose the flooring. Only the parquet is not friends with the warm floor, but the laminate, veneer, linoleum or tiles can be used well.
Choose a type of warm floor
Two types of warm floor are used – electric and water. Installation of a warm floor, the design of which includes pipes that are cut into a central or autonomous heating system, that is, a water floor, to equip a little more difficult – therefore, more and more often the owners of apartments and houses stop their choice on an electric warm floor. It can be equipped:
– With the help of special cables, evenly laid in the screed;
– With the help of ready -made mats;
– With the help of super -thin films (an analogue of the mat, only the source of heat is the entire area of the film).
The cheapest and safest option is with cables. Mats are considered the most reliable. But the film is rarely given to the film-although manufacturers declare their absolute safety, trust from users, for some reason, they do not cause.
Stages of laying a warm floor based on heating cables
Conditionally, styling can be divided into several stages:
– Preparation of the base;
– Placement of heating cables and thermostats;
– Connection of cables to the mains;
– Finishing (laying flooring).
The preparation of the floor is reduced to the dismantling of the old flooring, aligning the floor and laying the heat -insulating material. The ideal variant of the heat insulator will be a foam with a self -adhesive side. It effectively prevents the heat transfer due to the porous structure and caching with foil-the foil simply casts thermal radiation into the “side” of the room.
A concrete screed is laid on a layer of foam or other, similar to it in parameters, insulation, in which the cable of the warm floor system is mounted. Together with the cables, thermostat is installed. When installing a thermostat, it is necessary to provide quick access to it without dismantling the entire flooring. Ideally, it is worth placing it in the corner, closer to the wall – where electrical work will be carried out.
Electric power supply, however, is just in placing the heating system switch and in connecting it to the house network.
The last stroke is the laying of floor material: on the already dried -up, which scored at least half of the design hardness screed. Laying of the flooring can be carried out simultaneously with wall decoration: finishing work on the floor and walls is very convenient to carry out at the same time.
That, in fact, is everything: the warm floor connects to the network – you can enjoy the fruits of your work, easily adjusting the temperature level in the house using the control unit.