Hello@jones1978, We had the UFH installed 4 years ago and when researching it, I didn't even consider rugs and trapped heat; my thinking was that is 'they' say you can use carpet, a rug wouldn't make a difference. Well, as I discovered, it depends. If your rug is one of those heavy, high density knots wool rugs, the chances are that it will keep the heat trapped. However, a rather light, either cotton, sisal, viscose or thin wool rug doesn't seem to affect the overall temperature. I think the overall room temperature also depends on your insulation. The office room in the photos above is basically an internal room, it has no exterior walls or windows, so we actually rarely put the heating on in there even in December - and hubby works from home most of the week. Our living room, on the other hand, is the only room in the house with single glazing (conservation area rules) and a heavy rug; it's the coldest room in the house and looses heat pretty quick if we don't close the shutters. Luckily for us, the fireplace is functional and we light a fire almost every evening in the winter. I've been thinking about buying a thinner rug, but it really doesn't bother us that much. Make of this what you will, but personally, I still love UFH and I'd rather live with no rugs than go back to radiators... Good luck with your project! @mckevis - congrats on finishing! Please let us know how you like your UFH.

Thank you Judith. We have now had the hall completed today and it is much better and I noticed the subfloor boards were more level. I think I'm going to wait until they have completed the sitting room and if that is fine ask them to take the kitchen floor up. I think they could relay the subfloor with new planks and put it back again.

Hi Emily, Sorry to hear that! you had two problems: firstly the wood floor purchased is very rustic, D grade with very large knots and filled cracks. Mind you some people like it but if you didn't expect such "design" or if you were not made aware that many planks had filled cracks, then it's the supplier's fault. Secondly, fitters, are often incompetent, and would start laying floors without even looking at the boards. It's technically not even their fault as they were tasked to fit a floor that you provided. If it's a supply and fit job, then that's another story and you should go back to the suppliers complaining that the job wasn't carried out well enough. Were you made aware that some planks had large filling knots and cracks? There is nothing wrong with the planks. They are defective as such, they just look awful but again you have to ascertain if that's where expecting. It's very difficult to lighten up the black filling with a lighter colour and it's also very difficult to remove the filling but not impossible. You can use "french polisher" who will touch up your floor but they are not cheap. The easiest job is to cut out and remove the faulty planks. This is something that is often done to replace damaged boards. Of course the question is who is going to pay for it. The fitter will argue that he merely fitted the floor provided and wasn't asked to "look for ugly boards". He will also argue that he was to avoid those ugly boards he wouldn't have had enough boards to finish the job. Hope this helps and feel free to contact me for further advice. All the best.

Hello, sorry to hear about your experience. I'm not a floor expert but wanted to share my experience and thoughts. If you plan to screed the floor again, it might be wise to research how long the screed really takes to dry before laying a wooden floor because even though it is dry to walk on, there may still be moisture in the screed. If you lay the DPM, then add screed on top, the moisture only has one way to go which is upwards into the wood floor again. Why do you need the self levelling screed? Is it because the floor is completely unlevel in one part of the room compared to another? Just from my own experience, I've just had my kitchen, hallway and extension installed with engineered floors back in October. We had a chimney breast removed and this chimney sat on a concrete floor, the rest of the floor had wood floor joists. As some of the concrete floor was disturbed during the building work, the builder said he was going to fix it by filling the gap with concrete but lay DPM in the between the joists so the damp would not go through to the joists. When the floor fitter came to check the site, I told him this was the plan for the area, he immediately said the floor would not be dry in time ( floor to be installed a week after the concrete ) and said he would not install the wood floor in that area as it would take months to dry and the moisture would go into the wood. The existing concrete also had some damp ( not sure if this is normal ), he used a damp meter. The builder was obviously not happy with this as he said it takes 2 days to dry and there was a bit of standoff off between the fitter and the builder. The floor fitter said yes it might take 2 days to dry to walk on but moisture is still in the concrete. Eventually I had to get the builder to remove the concrete floor section and replace it with joist. In this situation I decided to trust the floor fitter as this was his field of expertise. My point is, even if you have a screed, I think you also need some DPM or something in between the screed and the wood that stops the moisture from rising into the wood. You could also go to some independent flooring shops if you still need to look for new flooring as they are usually very knowledgable, explain your situation with the screed, tiles etc and they would should be able to advise you what to do to avoid the same thing happening again. Did you have the floorboards floating or glued?