Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 20392042

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Energy and Buildings

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Thermal performance analysis according to wood ooring structure for energy

conservation in radiant oor heating systems
Jungki Seo, Jisoo Jeon, Jeong-Hun Lee, Sumin Kim
Building Environment & Materials Lab, School of Architecture, Soongsil University, Seoul 156743, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 4 February 2011
Received in revised form 8 April 2011
Accepted 23 April 2011
Keywords:
Wood ooring
Under-oor heating system
Thermal conductivity
Latent heat
Energy conservation
Building materials

a b s t r a c t
The aim of this study was to reduce energy consumption, especially heating, in buildings. Improvements
in the thermal conductivity of wood ooring, which was considered to decrease heating between oors
and the indoor areas, were investigated. Wood ooring components such as solid-wood, high-density
berboard (HDF), adhesives and polyethylene generally exhibit low thermal conductivity. The thermal
conductivity and transfer performance of 21 replicates of wood ooring materials generally used in
Korea were measured. The thermal conductivity was measured by using the guarded hot plate method.
The thermal conductivities differed according to the structure of the oorings. Laminate wood ooring
exhibited the highest thermal conductivity because of its high density and thin layers compared to the
other oorings. The thermal transfer performance differed according to the installation method. The
oating installation method exhibited a lower thermal transfer speed than the adhesion installation
method because of its air layers and polyethylene form.
Crown Copyright 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the increasing adversity of climate changes from global
warming, discussions within the international community for
establishing an appropriate response policy have become more
urgent. The Fourth IPCC Assessment Report, Climate Change
2007, warns of threats to the survival of humanity from changes
to the climatic environment, where global warming is no longer
a far off problem, but requires our awareness as a serious threat
today. The supreme importance of such an awareness requires full
responses at national, regional, and global levels [15].
In Korea, 97% of the energy resources are imported. The Korean
growth rate of greenhouse gas emission per capita was the highest
in the world during 19902004. Moreover, 83% of the domestic greenhouse gas emissions stemmed from energy use in the
year 2004. Korea belongs to the second group of nations requiring mandatory reduction of greenhouse gas emissions starting in
2013. Therefore, Korea is working particularly hard to prepare
for national measures to reduce energy consumption and limit
carbon dioxide emissions in the construction industry, which is
responsible for over 40% of all carbon dioxide production. In order
to pursue sustainability in the construction industry, the existing
development-focused construction activities must be transformed
via a new paradigm focusing on sustainable development through

Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2816 3354; fax: +82 2816 3354.
E-mail address: skim@ssu.ac.kr (S. Kim).

the adoption of sustainable policies by the government and the

development and dissemination of sustainable construction technologies [6,7].
Buildings account for 2040% of the total energy consumption
in developed countries [8]. In Korea, energy consumption of buildings is more than 23% of the total and is increasing as in developed
countries.
Many people live in apartments in major cities in Korea, where
the population density is over 1000 people km2 . The typical apartment is a 530 story building and the residential area per household
is between 50 and 150 m2 . Usually, heat is supplied from the boilers installed inside each apartment for oor heating [9]. The radiant
oor heating system (Ondol) has been used conventionally in Korea.
Residents spend a lot of their time sitting on oors. Therefore,
ooring materials used should be thermo-physically comfortable
[10,11].
With the rising economic standards among the Koreans, concerns about human health and the environment have been raised
because of the increasing demand for a wide range of ooring products. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ooring and laminated paper ooring
treated with soybean oil used to be the most common housing
materials, but have now begun to be replaced by wooden ooring,
especially in apartments [12]. However, the thermal conductivity
of wood oorings is very low, similar to heat insulation materials
for building. Commercial wood-based boards and solid wood have
a thermal conductivity less than 0.12 W/mK. The thermal conductivity in the longitudinal and transverse directions of six samples
of birch trees (hardwood) were 0.290.37 and 0.170.25 W/mK,

0378-7788/$ see front matter. Crown Copyright 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2011.04.019

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J. Seo et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 20392042

respectively. The thermal conductivity in the longitudinal direction was slightly higher but generally thermal energy is conducted
through the transverse direction in building nishing materials, and also has low thermal conductivity [13,14]. Consequently,
despite wood oorings many advantages such as hardness, durability, re resistance, excellent appearance and high latent heat, its
low thermal conductivity causes consumer complaints due to the
poor heat transfer between the under-oor and surface of the wood
ooring. Therefore, this study conducted a thermal performance
analysis of wood ooring according to the structure.

2. Experimental
2.1. Materials
The thermal performance of 21 replicates each of four different wood ooring structures that are generally used in Korea were
tested: laminate, engineered, solid wood, and modied engineered.
The laminate ooring comprises a core of high-density berboard (HDF), the engineered ooring is composed of plywood with
a thin fancy veneer bonded onto the face of the plywood using
urea- and melamine-formaldehyde resins as hot-press adhesives
[4], and the modied engineered ooring consists of plywood as
in engineered ooring but with a laminate lm instead of fancy
veneer.

2.2. Methods
2.2.1. Thermal conductivity measurement
The thermal conductivity of the wood oorings was measured
using a HFM 436 Lambda model by Netzsch by following the procedure of the ISO 8301, ASTM C 518: Guarded hot plate method.

2.2.2. Testing environment and equipment

Testing equipment was fabricated to measure the thermal transfer characteristics. Insurance panels were installed on the oor and
a suitable under-oor heating system was installed on the insurance panels. The tested ONDOL system was modernized, with a
gas boiler installed instead of using forest and briquette fuel. Hot
water from a boiler is supplied to a oor coil consisting of X-L pipes
underneath the oor surface [15]. However, because of the difculty in gaining detailed control of the surface temperature when
using hot water supplied from a boiler, small area heating panels
(850 mm 1700 mm) were used to be easy to install. The oorings were installed on the heating panels depending on the actual
installation: adhesive, or oating with polyethylene insulation. Five
temperature sensors were set on each ooring. The data logger used
was a midi LOGGER GL800 by Graphtec. Fig. 1 shows the testing
environment and equipment.

2.2.3. Testing method for thermal transfer and latent heat

characteristics
The set temperature for the heating was 35 C. Several Korean
researchers have explored various ooring nishing materials and
determined the ideal oor surface temperature for a person in a sitting position to be 22.038.8 C [1620] and general housing boiler
heating water temperature control range of 3080 C, which is used
primarily in the temperature range of 4560 C. At this point, the
wind chill is 3035 C on the nishing oor. So the temperature of
the heating panels was set at 45 C, and the time to reach 35 C was
measured.

Fig. 1. Thermal transfer and latent heat performance testing equipment.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Density and thermal conductivity of the wood ooring
The weight density results of the four types of ooring are shown
in Table 1. Except for laminate ooring, their density differs greatly
because the laminate ooring is made of constant pressure HDF
whereas the others use various domestic and foreign, solid-wood
or plywood. Therefore, the thermal conductivity and thickness also
varies widely and the results were calculated except some products
that are shaded in Table 1.
The average density results of the wood ooring products are as follows: laminate ooring (938 kg/m3 ) > solid-wood
ooring (709 kg/m3 ) > engineered ooring (638 kg/m3 ) > modied
engineered ooring (663 kg/m3 ). The average thickness results
was as follows: solid-wood ooring (9.88 mm) > laminate ooring
(8.08 mm) > modied engineered ooring (7.84 mm) > engineered
ooring (7.65 mm).
The
average
thermal
conductivity
results
are
as
follows:
laminate
ooring
(0.115 W/mK) > solid-wood
ooring
(0.112 W/mK) > modied
engineered
ooring
(0.111 W/mK) > engineered ooring (0.104 W/mK). The laminate and solid-wood ooring exhibit high density as they were
made of HDF and thick solid wood. Fig. 2 shows the thermal
conductivity and average density variations of the samples. The
structural differences make comparison to be difcult in some
extent, but the thermal conductivities of the oorings are directly
correlated to their density. These results suggest that the greater
density of the wood tissues allow them to deliver more heat
because of their higher thermal conductivity.

Fig. 2. Variations of thermal conductivity and average density of the oorings.

J. Seo et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 20392042

2041

Table 1
Thermal conductivity and density of four types of wood ooring.
Products

Engineered ooring

Category
Density (kg/m3 )
Thickness (mm)

1
893
6.94

Conductivity (W/mK)

Products
Category
Density (kg/m3 )

Mean
SD

0.122
0.013

Modied Engineered ooring

3
537
7.62

0.099
0.001

4
764
7.60

0.091
0.003

5
581
7.60

0.091
0.145

1
434
7.53

0.099
0.004

2
647
7.79

0.098
0.008

0.117
0.004

3
635
8.00

Solid-wood ooring
4
632
7.72

0.111
0.006

0.105
0.005

1
729
10.43
0.117
0.006

2
681
9.77

3
716
9.45

0.107
0.007

0.111
0.007

4
558
10.11
0.115
0.005

Laminate oor
Mean
Max
Min

Thickness (mm)
Conductivity (W/mK)

2
542
7.77

Mean
SD

1
921
1861
815

2
950
1896
855

3
936
1756
826

4
961
1733
844

5
938
1864
853

6
949
1920
862

7
938
1854
820

8
912
1776
821

8.09

8.01

8.19

8.31

8.08

8.00

7.96

8.01

0.114
0.004

0.125
0.006

0.118
0.001

0.107
0.002

0.117
0.002

0.117
0.003

0.113
0.004

0.112
0.004

3.2. Thermal transfer characteristics

Figs. 3 and 4 show the thermal transfer and latent heat performance of the ooring materials. In Fig. 3, the thermal transfer
performance of PVC ooring is measured as a reference. The PVC
ooring, engineered ooring and laminate ooring took 4, 8 and
14 min, respectively, to attain a oor surface temperature of 35 C.
The PVC ooring reached 35 C very quickly because of its thinness
compared with wood ooring, despite the similar thermal conductivities. In addition, laminate ooring was installed oating on the
polyethylene insulation on the oor. The polyethylene insulation
gives noise reduction and sensation hardness while walking, and
prevents moisture under the oor. However, its numerous pores

give it very low thermal conductivity. On the other hand, the adhesives in the engineered ooring give a higher thermal transfer
performance than that of laminate ooring.
Compared with the PVC ooring, the wood oorings are not able
to attain 45 C after 50 min due to their larger latent heat capacity
than PVC ooring. Similarly, the temperature decrement after the
heating was gone away is slower in the wood than PVC ooring.
Fig. 4 shows the thermal transfer and latent heat performance of
the wood oorings. The result demonstrates a similar tendency to
that shown in Fig. 3. The temperature of the oorings using adhesive
installation method was increased faster than those using oating
installation method, but the temperature of the engineered ooring was increased faster than the solid-wood ooring because the
thickness of the solid-wood ooring is 9.88 mm, which is thicker
than that of the engineered ooring (7.65 mm). Thickness might
inuence to latent heat capacity. When the heating was gone away,
the temperature descent rate decreased in the order of solid-wood
(9.88 mm), engineered (7.65 mm), and laminate (8.08 mm).
4. Conclusions

Fig. 3. Thermal transfer and latent heat performance of ooring materials.

Fig. 4. Thermal transfer and latent heat performance of wood oorings.

The thermal conductivity of four different types of wood ooring was measured to range from 0.091 to 0.125 W/mK according to
the wood ooring structure, like the number of layers and wood
characteristics. The wood ooring that utilized plywood exhibited
a low thermal conductivity because of its lower density compared
to HDF and because of the low thermal conductivity of the plywood adhesive. The thermal transfer performance was dependent
on the ooring thickness and installation method. The ooring that
utilized the adhesive installation method exhibited a higher performance than that the ooring that utilized the oating installation
method. However, the good latent heat capacity of the wood ooring allowed it to maintain a high temperature for longer periods
once the heating source was removed.
The latent heat of the wood oorings was better than that of
PVC ooring. However, the energy consumption of the wood oorings was very high in terms of the rate of temperature increase for
the rst heating. This is because the thermal conductivity of the
wood oorings was not quite different compared to the thermal
conductivity of the general insulation of polystyrene, which was
0.036 W/mK. Despite this disadvantage of low energy efciency,
the many advantages of wood ooring, such as hardness, durability, re resistance, excellent appearance, and high latent heat, have
made it popular.
The heating energy efciency depends on the radiant heat transmission to the oor-nishing surface from the heat source in the

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J. Seo et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 20392042

under-oor heating system. Therefore, further study will address

the improvement of the thermal conductivity of wood ooring for
increased energy conservation in buildings.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Grant of the Korean Ministry
of Education, Science and Technology (The Regional Core Research
Program/Biohousing Research Institute).
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