Underfloor heating is awesome. It’s just so nice to have that steady, even warmth radiating up through your floors. Makes you feel all toasty from head to toe without any cold drafts or hot air blowing around. The only problem? Not all flooring options play nice with underfloor heating systems. Some are the best flooring for underfloor heating, and some are just average.

You’ve got to be smart about what materials you use if you want to maximise that radiant heat. Choose the wrong floor and you could be stuck with cold spots, inefficiency, or even damage over time.

The Liquid Screed

This self-levelling, fluid-applied cement coating is like an underfloor heating system’s best friend. Liquid screed forms a smooth, seamless layer over your substrate that efficiently transfers heat from the heating cables or hydronic tubing up into the finished floor above.

Unlike poured concrete slabs or lightweight concrete toppings, liquid screed doesn’t have any air pockets or voids to create insulative cold spots. It’s an ultra-dense, high thermal mass material so every bit of that radiant heat gets evenly dispersed into your living spaces.

Okay, with that ideal underfloor heating foundation covered – let’s look at the best flooring for underfloor heating to install over liquid screed.

Engineered Hardwood

You get the natural beauty and warmth of real wood without the excessive expansion and contractions that can mess with solid hardwood. The layered plywood base helps the boards stay stable as temperatures fluctuate.

Engineered hardwoods are typically installed as floating floors too. That tiny air gap between the heating source and the wood surface is essential for wicking away excess moisture. It prevents the wood from prematurely drying out, cracking, cupping or crowning over time. That dense screed base helps channel heat right into those wood floors for maximum toastiness in every room.

Tiles Over Liquid Screed

These dense materials have excellent thermal mass and heat transmission properties. Pair them with a liquid screed base and you’ve got a radiant heating powerhouse.

The liquid screed will evenly conduct heat from the cables or hydronic tubing up into those dense tile floors with zero cold spots. Those tiles will then soak up and radiate that lovely underfloor heat like nobody’s business.

Not only is it nice and warm, but tile over underfloor heat also stays drier underfoot than with forced-air systems. Fewer issues with mould, mildew, and musty odours in humid spaces.

Stone and Brick On Liquid Screed

These old-school materials have been paired with radiant heating for centuries in places like the Middle East and Europe. The thermal mass of travertine, slate, and brick is unbeatable for heat retention and distribution.

But to maximise that thermal performance, installing over a liquid screed underlayment is essential. Work closely with your installer to make sure the heating system doesn’t run too hot for the stone or brick’s tolerance level. It may limit your temperature set points compared to other flooring.

Luxury Vinyl Over Liquid Screed

Here’s my hot take (pun intended) on luxury vinyl floors over liquid screed with underfloor heating: they’re a match made in radiant heaven. Looks can be deceiving on these affordable, high-performance floors. High-end vinyl planks and tiles visually mimic the textures of wood, stone and even handcrafted cement remarkably well these days.

But underneath those realistic wood and stone visuals, LVP and LVT are completely impervious to moisture. Their solid core layers are extremely dimensionally stable and won’t expand, contract, warp or get funky from the humidity and moderate heat from underfloor systems.

Install those ultra-stable luxury vinyl floors over a liquid screed base and you’ve got the perfect thermally efficient duo. The dense screed will evenly disperse that lovely underfloor warmth right into the vinyl flooring without cold or hot spots. Those floors will then radiate that gentle heated comfort evenly across the whole room.

Cost-Effective Laminate Over Liquid Screed

If you’re looking to save some money, laminate flooring should be on your radar too for installing over a liquid screed subfloor with underfloor heating. The melamine wear layers can take the heat just fine and the layered plywood bases resist warping and buckling over radiant systems better than solid wood planks.

Sure, laminate may not have the powers of luxury vinyl when it comes to totally waterproof cores. But many of the better laminate floors these days do use water-resistant HDF or plastic composite cores that hold up nicely to bathroom humidity or the occasional spill over underfloor heat.

As long as you buy a laminate specifically labelled for underfloor heating use and acclimate it properly before installation over the liquid screed, you should be good to go. Laminate can’t match hardwood or luxury vinyl for absolute authenticity. But it sure does look pretty close for a fraction of the material cost – especially paired with a liquid-screed radiant heating base.

No Carpet Over Underfloor Heat

You’re just putting one big dense blanket on top of another blanket of insulation. That super thick underfoot feeling ends up wasting a ton of the radiant heat’s potential. The carpet fibres and padding create too much of a barrier so very little actual warmth can transfer up to your living space from the liquid screed below. And nobody wants to crank the heating system into the triple digits just to futilely try blasting through all those insulative carpet layers.

If you’ve got your heart set on a softer, cosier vibe – go for luxury vinyl, laminate or engineered wood plank floors and use area rugs strategically. Add some plush area rugs over top and you’ve got the best of both worlds.

There’s nothing better than padding around in your fuzzy slippers over an evenly warm liquid screed and flooring situation all winter long. Do it right from the subfloor up, and those slipper dance parties just hit differently.