7 minute read
Special Subfloors
MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE
DEFINE THE MAIN FEATURES AND FOLLOW THE NECESSARY STEPS
Advertisement
Ingo Spindler and Marc Van de Perre (Steico - D)
"The ideal underlay has to take a lot of factors into account”
Steico was founded in 1986 in Germany as a trading company for wood based products. The company went through numerous growth phases and developed into a manufacturer of a complete timber construction system. In 2011 Steico transformed from a German to a European stock company. Today it is the world market leader for ecological wood fibre insulation materials, complemented by its own integrated wood construction system.
STEICOunderfloor
The original one-man company now has about 2,000 employees, 150 of whom work at the head office with its own R&D department in Feldkirchen (Munich). Steico has production sites in Czarnków (Poland), Czarna Woda (Poland), Casteljaloux (France) and a site that is currently under construction in Gromadka (Poland).
We talk to Head of Business Development Ingo Spindler and Key Account Marc Van de Perre specifically about STEICOunderfloor, the special, ecological subfloor for laminate and parquet floors made from wood fibres, which is produced completely glue-free in a 'wet' process.
"Before we start, however, I must emphasise that our company occupies a special position in the market," states Ingo Spindler. "We are the only manufacturer that can offer complete systems with both structural products and insulation. The whole product is not just about production, it also involves an enormous amount of technical know-how because you always have to provide customers with the most complete information possible. In short: we bring a solution to the market that is not only very technical, but also requires maximum support for the customers."
"Ecological building also includes the floor and what is underneath," Marc Van de Perre adds. "We at Steico supply a subfloor with impact sound insulation and thermal insulation made from wood fibres for each floor construction. These are ideal for hard floor coverings with click connections, multi-layer prefinished parquet and laminate. The wood used for this comes from sustainably managed forests, with either FSC ® or PEFC ® certification."
The ideal underlay
What does an ideal underlay need to address, we want to know. And how does one achieve all that with the Steico underlay? Ingo Spindler: "A subfloor has to be able to cope with a lot. This includes compensating for selective unevennesses, a significant reduction in impact noise, protection against breaking of the click connection, a high degree of variability due to graduated thicknesses, improvement of the noise in rooms, durability through a stable fibre structure and harmlessness to the building biology. And as Marc has already pointed out, the wood had better come from sustainably managed forests. Our underlay meets all these requirements."
"Looking at the unevenness first, the professional knows that a subfloor on which floor covering is laid is usually not perfectly smooth, but has protruding edges and corners in many places. Our underlay prevents these from touching each other, overloading the floor and pushing it upwards, which makes the installation of the floor safer. In terms of impact sound, you have to look at the sound one floor below. Here we reduce impact noise up to 21 dB, which is a very effective insulation measure at a low installation height."
Marc Van de Perre: "Thanks to the high compressive strength of 15 t/m², our STEICOunderfloor prevents thin click connections from breaking when the joints are loaded. Yet the underfloor boards are elastic enough to withstand falling objects. What's more, falling objects are cushioned and no great damage is done to the floor's surface. And to come back to the sustainable wood: because the
wood we use for the production of this underlay - like all other Steico products, by the way - comes exclusively from sustainable forestry, the CO2 bound in the wood fibres remains bound in the long term, too."
Graduated thicknesses
Ingo Spindler then explains how a high level of variability is achieved through graduated thicknesses. According to him, the big advantage here is that Steico's underlay is available in various heights, respectively 3, 4, 5 and 7 mm: "This way, the floor layer can react to different height levels from room to room and create a consistently even floor surface without tripping hazards. In a world where renovation is becoming so important, this is extremely important."
"Another strength is how much the sound in the room is improved. In rooms where STEICOunderfloor is installed, the walking sound changes significantly, it sounds quieter and deeper. What happens is that the floor resonates more 'highly' and even more pleasantly."
Marc Van de Perre: "Durability through a stable fibre structure may sound complicated, but it's not. Moreover, it is very important because a raw material such as wood also derives its stability from its fibre structure. Our product has a compact fibre cross-link without any binding agents and is permanently resistant to dynamic and static loads."
"And finally, to clarify what we mean by building biology: as with many other of our products, the underlay has also been thoroughly tested for its health effects in building applications by the renowned Institut für Baubiologie in Rosenheim. We are very proud that the product was found to be completely harmless and that the institute even recommended it!”
To conclude, Marc Van de Perre points out 2 other specific underlay products in the Steico range: - STEICOsilent+ : Wood fibre underlay boards of 10 mm thickness, with an impact sound improvement of 10 dB in ΔLlin and certified by TÜV Rheinland, which is especially important for the Dutch market. - STEICOsilent pro: 7 mm woodfibre subfloor boards with a hardened top layer giving the boards an extremely high compressive strength.
Building a new factory
During the conversation, it also emerged that Steico is in the process of building a new factory. Can Ingo Spindler tell us more about it? "This will be our first factory that is being built completely from scratch, this time we are not taking over an existing plant. We bought a greenfield in Poland near the German border in 2020 and are now running our biggest investment programme ever there. Insulation materials will be produced on this site. The start-up is planned for the beginning of 2023 and the construction work is already in full swing. This is an investment of around EUR 100 million, which will significantly increase our current annual capacity of 4 million cubic metres of insulation materials, including the underlay. To put this current volume into perspective: the annual volume already corresponds to 53,000 insulated houses...".
Finding the right subfloor is no easy task. Specialist Unifloor BV has been well aware of that for many years. This Dutch company specialises in the development and production of sound-reducing and levelling subfloors for commercial or domestic use. To do that, they respond to various materials and circumstances: PVC, linoleum, Marmoleum, wood, cork, laminate, carpet, floor heating, or floor cooling. They always offer a suitable subfloor.
How does the company approach this? It also seems worthwhile to consider the basis on which a choice can be made. Firstly, they say that the first job is to define the main features for choosing a subfloor. They point out that the chosen flooring and existing screed are also important here.
We can divide the features into four parts, namely impact sound, airborne sound, stability, and heat resistance. Nowadays, impact sound is certainly a vital factor. We all live closer together nowadays and, certainly in flats, reducing nuisance for neighbours downstairs is essential. This manufacturer has to cope with rules for flats in the Netherlands to lower impact sound by at least 10dB ΔLlin. Obviously, airborne sound is important as well. Airborne sound is a designation for the sound which is caused by footsteps in the same room. Here, Unifloor points out the importance of knowing how much air there is in a subfloor. It is absolutely essential to keep air out because subfloors containing a lot of air yield loud noises from footsteps as opposed to subfloors containing little air.
With stability, you consider the fact that the subfloor forms the base of a floor construction. Here you have to take account of subfloors which are too soft. Indeed, they cause too much movement in the flooring, and that has consequences. They point out here that manufacturers have to set minimum requirements for the impressionability of the subfloor.
Finally, there is the heat resistance factor. If you want a floor heating system to work properly, then the subfloor must allow the heat to pass through as easily as possible. Various aspects mean that the heat resistance has to be as low as possible and therefore maximum requirements are set for the combination of the subfloor with flooring.
Floor choice menu
How do you choose? No single system provides a universal solution, but it’s worth taking the trouble to look on the web site at the five-step
