The benefits of flooring underlays

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.