A floor of natural stone slabs — such as Luserna stone, granite, marble or travertine — laid with adhesive or on a mortar bed over a screed, with grouted joints. An ancient, noble material, it combines hardness, durability and a mass that makes it ideal over underfloor heating: it stores the heat and releases it evenly. Incombustible, hygienic and restorable, it is a finish that lasts for generations.
Technical section of the system, from inside (left) to outside (right).
A floor of natural stone slabs — such as Luserna stone, granite, marble or travertine — laid with adhesive or on a mortar bed over a screed, with grouted joints. An ancient, noble material, it combines hardness, durability and a mass that makes it ideal over underfloor heating: it stores the heat and releases it evenly. Incombustible, hygienic and restorable, it is a finish that lasts for generations.
A natural stone floor is a finish of stone slabs laid on a solid base. The stone — from Luserna to granite, marble to travertine — brings home hardness, durability and a character time does not scratch. Success lies entirely in the base and the laying.
Stone is dense and conducts heat well: this is why it works beautifully over underfloor heating. It stores the heat from the pipes and gives it back to the room evenly and gently, with great inertia. It is slow to warm, but then holds the comfort for long; in summer its coolness is welcome.
Few surfaces take foot traffic like stone: it resists wear, is incombustible and hygienic, and can be ground or polished again decades later. Calcareous stones (marble, travertine) do fear acids and staining, though; granite and Luserna are tougher. The choice of finish (honed, flamed) also sets the slip resistance.
Stone's enemy is movement in the base: a cracked or yielding screed telegraphs into the slabs. A mature, stable screed is needed, a de-coupling layer, the expansion joints respected and full adhesive coverage to avoid voids and debonding. The joints are grouted and, on porous stones, a stain-proofing treatment is applied.
Stone is dense and conducts heat well: two qualities that make it the ideal floor over radiant heating. It absorbs the heat of the pipes embedded in the screed and carries it to the surface, giving it back to the room evenly and gently, with no hot spots. Its great inertia makes it slow to warm, but it then holds the comfort for long even with the system off; in summer the same mass keeps it cool. It is the opposite of a light floor, which warms fast but cools just as quickly.
A stone floor must be able to move: expansion joints divide it into fields and run right through the slab, the adhesive and the screed, filled with an elastic sealant. Without them, the screed’s shrinkage and thermal movement crack the slabs.
At the wall the floor is not built in solid: a stone skirting covers a perimeter joint that lets the floor expand without pushing on the wall. The de-coupling layer and the joint together keep the floor independent of the structure.
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