Ok troops, wee bit of feedback required. I have a customer at the planing stage of a new build. He has done some research of his own and has an an idea to fit some Dinesen douglas solid flooring. It come in a whopping 450mm wide!! They go on to say that their flooring is suitable for UFH and has been used already in various domestic and commercial locations successfully. The UFH system is concrete finished downstairs and dry screed upstairs with a chipboard overlay. Have any of you used this product before? Cheers
I had a glance at their website and they appear to have fairly comprehensive instructions http://www.dinesen.com/PDF/vejledninger/GB/06_Floor_heating.pdf Happy reading!
I've been through it Sandy, I 'm just worried that like so many manufacturers they FIND a way to disclaim against faults. Don't know exactly how much this flooring is but I'm guessing it ain't cheap and I don't want to be the one to replace it. But Yes, as you say it is a very comprehensive site and reads very encouraging from a customers point of view. I reckon a wee call to their UK sales team and hopefully find a UK location where it has been installed is in order.
And if you do it record all your readings and methods and submit to the the customer for their records incase it all goes pear shaped. I have to admit it would scare the hell out of me. On saying that it would scare most fitters.
do not do it. If your customer wants someone to tell them not to then tell them to ring the British wood flooring association for advice. However taking the pee a bit if ringing a association for advice if the installer undertaking the work is not a member. They could also ring the FloorSkills training centre on 01564 703 900 and i will personally tell them if that is a help.
Cheers Sandy/Matt, I will pass this on to the customer. I would rather keep them straight now, even if its not the news they wanted. That way hopefully they'll respect the findings and still use me for an alternative product.
i have a quick look over the instructions and they was clearly written by someone with no idea but they seem good at quoting figures and calculations to try and baffle you. They are very wrong and asking for trouble. Just a few items to point out - where the insulation requirements of the Danish building code are adhered to, this poses no problem (we are in the U.k and work to British standards) The subfloor needs to below 85% RH ??? The BS is below 65% rh for glue down or 75%rh for floating a engineered Always make sure to lay out a vapour barrier on top of the dry concrete floor. (if i was to lay a vaporous barrier then it would mean im floating ,never float a solid!) Atmospheric humidity: 35 – 65% RH (but we are o.k with 85% in a subfloor ? it will roll itself up the cupping will be that bad) Moisture in tier of beams: Max. 10-12% (but they say the floor is dried to 8-10% MC. So if wood is 8% and subfloor is 11 or 12% then we are looking at major issues, if we acclimatise to 11-12% then as soon as heating comes on it will shrink loads, but if we dont acclimatise then the flooring will expand loads unless we are supposed to keep heating on 24 hrs a day 7 days a week to maintain ? ) This requires insulation with no less than 250 mm polystyrene (uk is 100-150mm depending on regs, so dig up your subfloor and lay deeper) This is all on the first page. I stopped reading and quoting when i read Chipboard LOL PS- just catched this when i was about to close page - One has to expect that the planks will shrink approx. 1% in the width. So then, 1% of a 500mm plank = 5mm ?? so each plank they are telling you will shrink by 5mm. That is of course providing there is a 4%mc change in the wood moisture . My maths tell me that what they say is correct. When heating is turned back off this product (being a solid) will require 10mm expansion / contraction per meter. Hence we dont fit solids over UFH!
If i was the customer i would read the enclosed info and you would be my first choice of installer, simply because you have been on here to check information. You clearly had doughts of the manufacturer calims and rightly so. This in my eyes shows you are a knowledgeable installer and seeking advice to confirm your doughts of what the manufacturer is suggesting. A fully bonded engineered floor would be the better choice. For reference you may want to refer your customer to this thread. For your customers reference i am the head of training of Floorskills and the British wood flooring association. Im involved in the writing of British Standards. I also do testing and reports of failed floors. Hope that helps.
Cheers Matt, fantastic information and help. I'll be talking to the customer tomorrow and I think we'll just a have a sit down in the office and go through this thread with them.
Possible to late for the first poster but you can get this in an engineered board but not as wide http://www.tuttoparquet.co.uk/douglasfir.html if its of any help Have installed floors of this width before but mostly maple,ash,oak had to make them for a custom job, oddball customer different species different widths all in the same floor, got felled timber in the forest and from sawmill's, had to cut, dry,and machine all the wood.
