Vinyl plank flooring in solar passive house?

We are building a solar passive home but are having some difficulty settling on a floor finish.

My question is, has anyone actually used vinyl plank flooring on a slab designed for solar gain?

I understand that polished concrete or tiles should be used, but they aren't the most user friendly surfaces. I have spent fruitless hours trying to find anything on the Net about the use of vinyl plank flooring in this application. I realise there is no mass in the vinyl, but if it readily transfers the solar and thermal warmth in both directions (since it is quite thin) and is glued directly to the slab, why wouldn't it work?

Has anyone actually used this in the application?

Cheers.

Maybe ask company that makes vinyl planks.l have them in my home they are great,l have
them in wet area laundry,bathroom.l got karndean to give it in writing that warranty would
be honoured.

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I agree they wouldn't be ideal, but after spending a week in a holiday unit with vinyl plank flooring I must admit I am won over by the feel underfoot compared to a tiled surface, which I have lived with the last 8 years.

The house we are building is in the Southern Tablelands (cold winters, hot summers) and has been designed from Day 1 as passive solar, with true North orientation, plenty of Northern glazing, insulated edge raft slab etc etc. The only sticking point has been a liveable floor surface. A bit of negotiation with my wife enabled the omission of carpet anywhere, but her next preference was vinyl planks, which I was unsure about until living with them for a week as mentioned above.

I have emailed Karndean a couple of days ago but haven't received the official reply as yet. I would imagine this isn't the type of question they get every day so it might take some investigating.

The new build is virtually finalised and ready for pricing, so I am scrambling to dig up some info on this. In the end I suppose if the house orientation is correct and the other design details are sorted then how bad can it be?

Thanks for your input,

Michael.

Can you elaborate on what you mean exactly , by solar passive?

If your slab is on the ground, how does it heat from the sun?

qebtel, with North facing windows and the correct eaves overhang the winter sun comes in and heats up the floor which then radiates the warmth back into the house over the next 3-4-5 hrs. The floor ( usually conc slab ) is in effect a giant heat sink. In summer with the sun being much higher the eaves should stop any sun coming into those same windows/doors.
Here is an example of passive solar

although the figure for summer should be 72º ( here is Sydney anyway )

Stewie

Our new home is facing due north, and with a not so wide verandah of 1.5m width, which gives us good front of the house shade in summer, but in winter the lower half of the windows gets sun on to them. Not perfect, but it does give us a usable front verandah.

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Thanks to all for your replies.

Hydronic is out of the question due to cost. That went the way of a nice curved roof we had also intended once we found out just how much it costs to do it properly. You can spend a fortune on your 'Forever house/wedding/car' then turn around in a couple of years time and head in another direction, dropping a bundle in the process.

I dug up some info from Sustainable Energy Victoria which confirms that vinyl isn't a bad choice in the application, just not the optimum choice.

That'll do. Vinyl planks it is.

So what's next of the thousand build decisions?

Cheers,

Michael.

Hi Michael, just wondering where you saw the reference regarding vinyl flooring and thermal mass. I couldn't find it on the sustainability victoria site. I am also thinking of using vinyl planks in my passive solar house.