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Heat has to travel up through whatever sits on top of the heating. Anything soft, thick or full of air insulates it and sends the warmth nowhere. That is why the underlay matters more than the board does.
Get the build-up right and a laminate floor over heating film is quiet, even and cheap to run. Get it wrong and you have paid for a heated floor that never quite warms the room.
These come from the installation guide for the film, not from general flooring advice. A floor that meets all three works. A floor that misses one usually disappoints.
That is the whole build-up above the heating, laminate plus underlay together, and it is about half a tog. Dense and thin passes. Thick and soft does not.
Every material and adhesive in the floor has to hold up at temperature. That includes the underlay, which is where most standard laminate specifications fall down.
Click-lock laminate is laid floating with no adhesive and no fixings, and needs 8 to 10mm expansion gaps at every wall so it can move as the floor warms.
Laminate is almost always laid on a foam underlay. It is cheap, it evens out small dips in the subfloor, and it takes the hollow sound out of a floating floor. On an unheated floor it is the right choice.
Over heating film it is the wrong one, for two separate reasons.
Foam is mostly trapped air, which is exactly what makes it a good insulator and a bad thing to put over a heater. A typical foam underlay alone can use up the entire 0.05 m²·K/W budget before the laminate goes down. The heat ends up going downwards, which you pay for and never feel.
The installation guide is blunt about this: standard foam underlays must not be used, because they can release harmful vapours at the temperatures a heated floor reaches. Everything in the build-up has to be rated to at least 80°C. That is a safety rule, not a performance one.
A thin, high-density underlay made specifically for underfloor heating, or no underlay at all where the laminate manufacturer allows it. These are usually a few millimetres of dense board rather than soft foam, and they will state both a tog rating and a temperature rating on the packaging. If it does not state them, do not use it over a heated floor.
0.05
Maximum m²·K/W for the whole build-up above the heating
80°C
Minimum temperature rating for every material in the floor
8-10mm
Expansion gap at every wall, because laminate floats
The heating film is independently tested to BS EN 60335, the British safety standard for electric heating appliances, and is CE and UKCA marked.
The film goes down on an insulated, level subfloor, the sheets plug into each other, and the laminate floats on top. The order matters and so do a few details that are easy to get wrong.
Insulate underneath first
Without insulation below the film, a good share of the heat goes into the slab instead of the room. This is the single biggest running-cost mistake on a floor.
Never nail or screw through it
Any fixing that penetrates the floor can go through the film. That damages it and creates an electrical hazard. Laminate over heating always floats.
Leave 8 to 10mm at every wall
A heated floor moves more than an unheated one. Too small a gap is why heated laminate lifts or peaks at the joints.
Do not run it before the floor is down
The film must not be operated without its floor covering in place, and the floor should be brought up to temperature gradually rather than switched straight to full.
Send the room size, the laminate you are planning and the underlay. We will tell you whether the build-up comes in under the limit, and what to change if it does not.
Free, no obligation, and we will tell you if the floor is the wrong answer.
Laminate is a compromise. It works, but it insulates, so less of the heat reaches the room than it would through a dense floor. If the covering is still open, this is worth knowing before you choose.
The best case. Dense, conducts well, responds fastest, and it is what the system is designed around.
Works well. Oak and similar. Check the board’s own maximum floor temperature and leave the expansion gaps.
Usually not. Most carpet and underlay is well over the limit and traps the heat instead of letting it through.
See what electric underfloor heating costs to run, with figures by floor area, and the full specification.
Yes, but not with a standard foam underlay. Two rules decide it. The whole floor build-up above the heating must have a thermal resistance below 0.05 m²·K/W, about half a tog, and every material must be rated to at least 80°C. A normal foam underlay fails both, so it has to be swapped for a thin, dense, heat-rated board designed for underfloor heating.
A thin, high-density underlay specifically rated for underfloor heating, or none at all where the laminate manufacturer allows it. Standard foam underlay must not be used: it insulates the heat away from the room, and the installation guide warns it can release harmful vapours at the temperatures the floor reaches. Whatever you use has to be rated to 80°C or better.
Thinner is better. Laminate is an insulator, so every extra millimetre works against the heat getting into the room. Around 7 to 8mm over a thin heat-rated underlay usually keeps the total build-up inside the 0.05 m²·K/W limit. A 12mm board on a foam underlay will not.
Yes, 8 to 10mm at every wall. Laminate is laid floating and click-locked, with no adhesive or fixings, so it needs room to move as the floor warms and cools. Skipping the gap is the most common cause of a heated laminate floor lifting or peaking at the joints.
No, never. Any nail, screw or fixing that penetrates the floor risks going through the heating film, which damages it and creates an electrical hazard. Laminate over heating film is always laid floating.
Tile, comfortably. Tile and stone conduct heat well and are what the system is designed around, so more of the heat reaches the room and it responds faster. Laminate works but insulates, so it is the compromise choice when tile is not wanted. If the floor is being chosen from scratch and underfloor heating is the priority, choose tile.
Send the room size, the laminate you are planning and the underlay, and we will tell you whether the build-up comes in under the limit before you buy any of it. If it does not, we will tell you what to change.
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