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Advice and Ideas
Are rugs suitable for underfloor heating?
Underfloor heating is becoming an increasingly popular method of keeping homes nice and toasty, especially as it frees up wall space otherwise taken up by radiators and provides an even spread of heat throughout the room. Yet, many people are worried over the safety of placing carpets or designer rugs on heated floors. Luckily, it’s still possible to decorate your floor space despite the wiring or piping hiding beneath your flooring but there are a few factors you will need to consider before choosing your contemporary rugs or carpets to be placed onto your heated floor.
Electric underfloor heating vs. water underfloor heating
Before thinking of a suitable rug, choose between the two types of underfloor heating:
The water-based heating (image above, right) works by connecting a web of hot water pipes to the boiler bringing ambient heat into the room works well with carpets and rugs, the system is bulky so your floor may need to be raised slightly during installation. Water based underfloor heating is more expensive to install but the heating bills over the years should be much less than electrical underfloor heating so is a good long term investment.
Electric underfloor heating (image above, left) consisting of flexible pads/tiles containing electrical cables that provide the heat source which are installed underneath the flooring.
How rugs can work on heated floors: tufted vs. knotted construction
While the water-based underfloor heating is not usually impacted by rugs or carpets, you do have to be a bit more careful with electric underfloor heating. With the latter, a rug could act as an insulator, interfering with the circulation of heat which could potentially lead to a rise in electricity costs. This could be damaging to timber floors which should only be heated to 27°C , making them vulnerable to any tapped heat. A tufted rug or carpet that is overheated at very high temeratures may rarely result in the glue softening, which could in turn cause waves to form in the rug or carpet once the material cools down. However the ideal temperature in a living room is between 19 and 22° so it is highly unlikely you would heat a room above 24°C! and we have never come across this problem at Sonya Winner Rugs!
The optimal choice is to select a rug that doesn’t retain too much heat, ideally made from a high percentge of natural fibres. A hand knotted rug is the prefect choice bt in most situations a tufted rug works fine. Our hand tufted rugs have their tufts secured by synthetic latex and a canvas glued on the back, all of our designs can also be made in hand-knotted construction.
Knotted rugs also have the advantage of being able to be made at thin pile (8-10mm) which is useful in hallways where doors may have to pass over them. Knotted rugs can also be made in thick pile too. The minimum pile height for a tufted rug is thicker around 10mm. See below the pile height difference between a hand tufted rug, which has a canvas glued on the back (left) and hand knotted rug, no canvas (right). A tufted rug with a pile height of 12-15 mm could be suitable for underfloor heating especially if it is a water based system.
Rug materials, shapes and sizes most suitable for underfloor heating
Rugs made from natural fibres are a good fit for underfloor heating systems as they conduct the heat and release it quickly, so it’s best to choose a rug with wool, silk or hessian materials. All of our rugs are made from 100% New Zealand wool, or Chinese silk, sometimes a mix of the two natural fibres.
When you choose to place a rug on your heated floor, it is best not to cover the whole area of the floor, as leaving some of the floor exposed will allow the spread of heat throughout your room.
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It is also important to consider the furniture arrangement. With underfloor heating it is best to have an all-off style arrangement (see the image below), where the rug sits in front of, not underneath the furniture, this way allowing the floor to breathe.
The best rug thickness for heated floors
The advice from most heating companies has been to recommend rugs and carpets of a thermal resistance that is less than 1.5 togs. On a practical level, this means that your rug should not have a very high pile height, such as Moroccan rugs or shag pile rugs as these rugs trap the heat within their fibres. An ideal pile height is 10 – 15mm. Recent research by The Carpet Foundation, in partnership with the Underfloor Heating Manufacturers Association (UHMA), recommend the thermal insulation value should not add up to more than 2.5 togs when the ratings of your rugs (or carpets) are combined with the tog levels of the underlay. Interestingly most recent tests carried out by the UHMA have confirmed that rugs perform better than had been expected with underfloor heating when tested in an actual room set conditions when a rug is open to the surrounding air suggesting the actual value can be lowered by as much as 1 tog to give a more meaningful result in a home setting
If you’d like any further advice about suitable rugs from our range, please feel free to contact us.
