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Stud walls and underfloor heating - which should come first?!!


GM
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Our French builder has just said it is obligatory to build our stud walls before he finishes the floor in our barn conversion - the first layer of concrete is down, we now need the underfloor heating and final concrete layer.

To us this is daft and certainly not we'd do in England. Surely we should build our stud walls on top of the finished floor level?!!

Anyone any experience of this?

Thanks

G
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We did walls first. The amount of pipe in the different rooms varies depending on the purpose of the room, size and number of outer walls. If you put the walls on top of the screed you risk drilling in the pipe. You also have to pour the screed in sections to allow for expansion joints.
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All builders seem to do them before even without underfloor heating, if you look at the prehung door and frame assemblys you will see that the door stiles extend under the door to the screed thickness.

 

Without UFH I do all my carrelage first then construct the cloisons, I use the minimum of fixings on the lower rail, small red plugs then the cloison can be removed later and/or moved with little collateral damage.

 

If you are sure of the depth and placement of your UFH pipes then you could place the cloisons later and avoid damage if all goes to plan, a big risk though.

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Given than the shap (screed) should be about 5 or 6 inches (100 - 150mm) thick, that's much thicker than any hole you need to drill for a screw to secure a floorplate timber (after all, all such fixing are simply stopping any lateral movement).

I've built partition walls both before and after and each has pros and cons. There's much to be said for phtographing the pipe layout (with appropriate measurement markings) before pouring the screed, so you can say with relative certainty where the pipes are buried before going wild with a masonary drill.

I divide mine up into quite small sections, and lay and level the plastic rails to give me a tamping guide. I actually go for the very dry rather than very sloppy screed (think making sand-castles), it being much easier to do a small section at a time. The only dowside to this I find is that when it's gone off it's much dustier than the wet, so definitely needs sealing or employ a jeune full-time to sweep the cement dust! 

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We had the floor screed pumped in by a company. It's a special screed for UF heating and is thinner than a normal screed. (2-3 inches I think but need to check with OH). Took 4 hours for the screed to be poured and spread but 4 weeks to dry out properly.
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  • 4 months later...
Always screed first and the pipe matrix avoiding the wall positions this gives a level floor from room to room and as the great man says .you don't need a massive fixing to prevent sideways movement,

By the time board, skirtings and floor coverings are in place you are pretty much locked in but I would recommend shoving an offcut of montant into the bottom rail near door openings an putting a 2 inch ten in each side.
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