Sex refers to the coldest part of the house. First of all, this is due to the fact that cold air goes down, and blows from under the floor. Therefore, to reduce heat loss in the house and obtain warmer floors, they are insulated. This is especially required in rooms with wooden floors. Even if the boards are stacked tightly enough to each other, after a while they dry up, begins to penetrate from crevices, which leads to heat loss of up to 30%.
We suggest considering options for how and how to insulate the floor in a wooden house from below.
Technology
Insulating the floor in a private house is quite simple. For thermal insulation, you can use a variety of types of insulation.
Before insulating the floor in a wooden house from below, the following parameters should be considered:
- the conditions in which the floor will be used (temperature and humidity inside the house, the purpose of the room, the load exerted);
- the required height of the insulation layer.
It is not difficult to insulate the floor with your own hands. Thermal insulation has three layers:
- thermal insulation;
- vapor barrier;
- flooring.
How to insulate the floor in a wooden house from below: the sequence of work
- Wooden logs are stacked.
- Wooden boards or boards are fixed from below to logs. This coating will serve as an auxiliary base on which the insulation is laid.
- Insulation is laid between the lags. The material should be laid tightly enough, and the gaps formed between the lags and sheets should be filled with special sealant or polyurethane foam.
- The vapor barrier material is laid on the heater. The vapor barrier is fixed on the logs, sealed with metalized tape all joints and gaps.
- Wooden flooring is laid and further finishing is done.
The thickness of the thermal insulation layer is selected individually for each private house. It depends on the following indicators:
- what type of insulation;
- what climatic conditions.
Floor insulation on logs
Consider how to insulate the floor in a wooden house from the bottom on the lags. This method is quite simple, but it is very effective, allowing you to eliminate significant heat loss.
Insulate the floor in a private house on the logs as follows.
Initially, you need to install wooden logs. Then fix the boards or boards, on which the insulation will be further laid. They are hemmed from below or fixed on special bars. Next, lay the insulation, hydro- and vapor barrier layer between the lags on the flooring. At the final stage, floorboards are mounted and flooring is carried out.
The main advantage of floor insulation on logs is the ease of operation, which almost everyone can cope with, while the efficiency is at the highest level.
Materials for floor insulation
To date, the building materials market offers a wide variety of thermal insulation materials, which differ in their properties, sizes, application method and cost.
What is better to insulate a wooden floor? Warming can be carried out using heat-insulating materials, which are also used for warming roofs and walls:
- mineral wool (stone, slag, glass);
- ecowool;
- polyurethane foam;
- polystyrene;
- Isolon
- penofol.
Also used are materials such as expanded clay, sawdust, polystyrene. The choice of a suitable sealant depends on various parameters, preferences and capabilities of the owners of this housing.
How to insulate the old floor with sawdust?
Sawdust is one of the simplest types of insulation. Their main advantage is a rather low cost (in comparison with other heat-insulating materials), lightness and simplicity of backfilling, which allows to heat even hard-to-reach and very narrow places. In addition, sawdust is an environmentally friendly material. They can be used not only in their pure form, but also be included in various building mixtures.
Mineral wool floor insulation
You can insulate the floor in the old house with mineral wool, which is one of the most common heaters. Its main advantage is absolute incombustibility. She also has:
- chemical and biological resistance;
- high thermal insulation qualities.
Before you insulate the wooden floor from the bottom with mineral wool, you should familiarize yourself with its shortcomings. These include:
- low mechanical strength;
- low vapor permeability;
- the ability to absorb moisture well, while losing its thermal insulation properties (for this reason, when installing, pay attention to vapor barrier).
In addition, this material is not safe for the human body.
Mineral wool is produced in the form of hard plates or flexible mats. The harder side of the plates is indicated by a blue stripe. Laying must be done so that the marking (strip) is at the top. Plates, as a rule, are used for thermal insulation of wooden floors. Stack them in one layer.
Floor insulation with penofol
Penofol belongs to one of the new multilayer rolled heat-insulating materials, which appeared on the construction market recently and has not yet managed to get wide distribution. It consists of a heater and a special reflective layer (thin polished aluminum foil). Basis (insulation material) can be almost any insulation. The most popular translucent material, which includes foamed polyethylene.
The classic version of penofol is polyethylene foam, thermally bonded with foil. But this option cannot satisfy all the existing needs of modern construction, so at the moment there are many varieties of penofol.
Penofol classic has a high density, due to which it is able to withstand large mechanical loads.
It is possible to use the material both for basic heat-, steam- and waterproofing, and as auxiliary insulation, in combination with other insulation.
Due to the small thickness and the presence of foil, the installation is simple, easy and quick. The insulation can be laid on the floor surface end-to-end or with an overlap. The joints formed are sealed with metallic tape. The use of penofol eliminates the need for laying steam and waterproofing. This function is performed by aluminum foil.
Floor insulation with polystyrene (polystyrene)
Expanded polystyrene (polystyrene) also occupies a leading place among heat-insulating materials. This is explained by the presence of a number of advantages and a minimum of disadvantages in the material. The insulation has low thermal conductivity and vapor permeability, high strength, fire resistance, biological and chemical resistance. Thanks to the cellular structure, the insulation is durable and particularly effective as a thermal insulation.
The disadvantage of polystyrene foam is moisture absorption, due to which certain of its properties are lost.
Ecowool floor insulation
Ecowool is made from natural materials. 75% of it consists of paper and 25% of natural special additives. This is a mixture of cellulose, and the binders in it are boric acid and antiseptic lignin. Due to this composition, ecowool is absolutely safe for humans, and is also environmentally friendly.
Its advantages include low thermal conductivity, fire safety (the material does not burn, but only smolders), the ability to restore thermal insulation properties after wetting. The disadvantages are considered a higher cost than other heaters.
How to warm the floor with ecowool? It is applied in various ways:
- Manual. The material is laid between the lags (bars) on the boards or boards hemmed from the bottom. Ecowool should be laid tightly, and the joints should be treated with polyurethane foam.
- Mechanical. In this case, mobile blowing machines are used, through which insulation is supplied through the hose under pressure.
Isolon insulation
Isolon is a heat-insulating material made of foamed polyethylene foam. The insulation was developed taking into account the current requirements for thermal insulation. Due to this, its use has several advantages.
First of all, it is necessary to note the small thickness of the material, which ranges from 2 to 10 mm. In this case, the thermal conductivity does not increase. Isolon with a thickness of 1 centimeter in thermal conductivity is equal to brickwork.
Isolon does not get wet due to foamed polyethylene. The material is durable, does not rot, protects against steam and moisture. The insulation is environmentally friendly, it can be used in any room. Such material can be used for both primary and secondary insulation. Izolon, when processing wooden floors, serves not only as insulation, but also plays the role of sound insulation, as it is able to absorb sounds. Another advantage of this material is its small thickness, which saves free space.
Floor insulation with polyurethane foam
Polyurethane foam has a cellular structure in which the pores are filled with insulating gases and air, which allows for low thermal conductivity and at the same time low material weight. Therefore, polyurethane foam is considered one of the best thermal insulation materials. Its advantages include resistance to alkalis and acids, to rot, mold damage.
How to insulate a wooden floor from the bottom with polyurethane foam? The material is applied to the surface by spraying, for which use special equipment. This insulation adheres well enough to different materials, so it can be used for thermal insulation of any surfaces. This method allows you to warm the surface of absolutely different shapes and complexity, repeating all the contours with accuracy and without forming joints. Due to the low coefficient of moisture absorption, there is no need for a vapor barrier layer.
Insulation of the floor is an important step in maintaining heat and maintaining a favorable atmosphere in the house.
If you are thinking about how to insulate an old wooden floor and are going to make a purchase of material, it is necessary to take into account all factors, determine priorities, and only then make the final choice.