The benefits of flooring underlays

How to choose the right underlay for your floor

Floor cov­er­ings are the secret stars of the house. No mat­ter what people do in their homes – they play a “load-bear­ing” role. Every day, they are trampled under­foot and carry the entire weight of the fur­niture. At the same time, they are expec­ted to absorb as much noise as pos­sible, feel warm and com­fort­able under­foot and still look good after many years. No prob­lem if the basic floor struc­ture is right. Under­lays help a great deal: They absorb room noise as well as foot­fall sound, reduce heat loss, increase the walk­ing com­fort and extend the ser­vice life of the floor. Before install­a­tion, you should how­ever enquire about the health and envir­on­ment­al com­pat­ib­il­ity of the selec­ted under­lay.

In order to achieve a per­fect inter­play of all floor lay­ers, it is advis­able to seek expert advice. As a gen­er­al rule, soft floor­ing needs a hard under­lay. Elast­ic vinyl or PVC floor­ing, for example, will have few­er pres­sure marks or dents when it is “sup­por­ted” by a hard under­lay from below. Espe­cially chair castors will be pre­ven­ted from leav­ing unsightly marks on the floor­ing. Hard under­lays provide hardly any sound or heat insu­la­tion. How­ever, they are well suited for use on under­floor heat­ing sys­tems.

Soft, foamed mater­i­als, on the oth­er hand, belong under sol­id cov­er­ings such as par­quet. They pro­tect against noise – both in the room itself and in the room under­neath. This helps you main­tain a relaxed rela­tion­ship with your flat­mates and neigh­bors. At the same time, they improve thermal insu­la­tion. This has a pos­it­ive effect on the room cli­mate and on your heat­ing bill. Thick, soft under­lays are par­tic­u­larly recom­men­ded when there are large tem­per­at­ure dif­fer­ences between rooms loc­ated on top of each oth­er, for example a room above the cel­lar. How­ever, cau­tion is recom­men­ded with under­floor heat­ing. While a soft under­lay can impede the flow and trans­fer of heat, this is not a prob­lem with hard under­lays. The pro­fes­sion­al floorer should, how­ever, check that the applic­able lim­it value of 0.15 m² K/W for the thermal res­ist­ance is observed.

It is of vital import­ance that the selec­ted under­lays are low-emis­­sion. Pol­lut­ants tend to migrate through all floor lay­ers and enter the indoor air. The EMICODE® EC1 seal on the product pack­aging provides use­ful guid­ance. It is awar­ded by the GEV (Asso­ci­ation for the Con­trol of Emis­sions in Products for Floor­ing Install­a­tion) to products that meet the world’s most strin­gent emis­sion lim­its. To obtain the label, the products are tested in a test cham­ber by inde­pend­ent labor­at­or­ies. If the products pass the test, man­u­fac­tur­ers are allowed to use the seal on the pack­aging. Reg­u­lar spot checks car­ried out by inde­pend­ent experts and test­ing insti­tutes ensure long-term com­pli­ance with the emis­sion lim­its. This is the advant­age of EMICODE® over oth­er cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tems for health and envir­on­ment­al com­pat­ib­il­ity.

Photo: ©Dmitry Kalinovsky/123RF.com

Under­lays make the floor­ing on top more dur­able and increase the liv­ing com­fort. Day in day out, they must res­ist foot traffic, warm our feet, carry the weight of bulky fur­niture and look good for many years. With the right sup­port from below, the floor is bet­ter pre­pared for all these tasks. With the EC1 seal on the under­lay pack­aging, res­id­ents can be sure to install a healthy and envir­on­ment­ally friendly product in their homes.

Do You Have Questions?

If you have ques­tions about spe­cif­ic top­ics or if you would like to con­tact us for any oth­er reas­on, feel free to con­tact us by phone, fax or e‑mail.

Phone: +49 211 / 67931–20
Fax: +49 211 / 67931–33

info@emicode.com

Share art­icle on Social Media:

4 March 2019