Wood floor insulating underlay

terenurebob

Hi all. I have an old house with wooden floors. There is about a 1 foot gap between the exisiting floor and the foundation of the house. In the winter the floors get quite cold due to the cold air circulating under the house. I am planning to cover up the floors with a new semi-solid laminate. I was thinking that I would use some sort of insulated underlay that would keep as much of the cold out and keep as much of the heat in. The exisiting floors are in bits due to being pulled up over the years and there are gaps all over the place. You can feel the draft very strongly on very windy days.

Anybody have any ideas on what the best inslulation to use is or some other idea for sealing the floor to keep out the cold and drafts before putting the new floor down?

Thanks.

dathi

hi i have similar floor to you and what i did was, take up the old floor boards and nailed a small baton to the side of the floor joist. then cut 100mm of kingspan/extherm to fit between the joists, pushing it down to sit on the baton so that it cannot fallout , filled any gaps in insulation with expanding foam and then relayed the old boards.doing that and 400mm of insulation in the atic saved me over 500 litres of oil in the first year

Valdes

dathi wrote: »

hi i have similar floor to you and what i did was, take up the old floor boards and nailed a small baton to the side of the floor joist. then cut 100mm of kingspan/extherm to fit between the joists, pushing it down to sit on the baton so that it cannot fallout , filled any gaps in insulation with expanding foam and then relayed the old boards.doing that and 400mm of insulation in the atic saved me over 500 litres of oil in the first year

Yeah this sounds like a good solution but remember that by sealing (or mostly sealing) off these floors you take away the ventilation for that room. This can cause a problem particularly if you have double glazed windows and no other vents in the room (if you have a fireplace there - great). Just so you know - its will save you heating costs though

terenurebob

Thanks dathi. That sounds like a better idea than the one I had. Cheers.

dathi

i have this done around 10 years with no condensation or mould development . you are mixing up uncontrolled air infiltration and ventilation. a timber floor with no insulation allows air to leak in and out in taking heated air with it . ventilation is used to change the air in a room in a controlled manor . ie through vents on windows , hole in wall, passive stack etc. by insulating the floor in the manor i suggested you stop infiltration in the floor. but as anyone with a old house will tell you the house still leaks like sieves .

Corkey123

Daithi

I've done exactly the same in most of the down stair rooms and you can definitely feel the difference from room with and room without insulation, particularly in the windy winter evening.

Martin

canice

Daithi
Thanks for the infomation.
Who did this job for you and how much did it cost?
Thanks
T