Any issues with vinyl plank over radiant?

rossn

Are there any gotcha's with vinyl plank flooring over radiant flooring? Hydronic with cement, gypsum, or concrete overpour.

At design condition I would be pushing max floor temps to meet the needed Btus, and see many of the products are rated up to 85F direct contact. Some mfg's seem to warn against creating hot spots by putting down a rug or piece of furniture.

Has anyone experienced related issues?

hot_rod

Best check with the flooring manufacturer. I did one staple up rubber tube job, no plates, many many years ago
Running 150- 160 SWT. It had glue down vinyl tiles, 12X12. It did get yellow stripes where throw rugs were on top of it. Those staple up system concentrate the heat in a small area.

The system you are describing should not have high temperature striping, I would think 90F SWT should be acceptable. The flooring could get that warm on a hot sunny day

dopey27177

There are two types of vinyl flooring. Soft vinyl which has to be glued down and hard vinyl flooring that has an inter locking system similar to engineered wood flooring.
Need to call flooring manufacturer to find out about what heat will cause the glue to weep out from the glued down plank, what would cause the hard vinyl plank to warp.

Jake

rossn

Thanks, Hot Rod and Jake. Yes, I did speak to flooring mfg's yesterday and review their documentation. Of the 3 I looked at 1 listed an operating range up to 82F at the interface of the subfloor, and the others mentioned 85F. One of the docs mentioned being aware of creating hot spots with area rugs, which conceptually makes sense, since it could drive the temp above 85.

I was able to speak to a technical manager from one company, who explained in his 10 years he has not seen it become an issue, and is likely there to protect them legally. They also have a core that contains some stone (I believe) and is flexible... he seemed to think this prevents any practical issues. He mentioned that the 85F is coming from an ASTM standard which requires the material operate through that range.

It sounds like it is not a practical issue, and just wanted to confirm it was not an issue known here, before buying thousands of sf of flooring. Thank you all!