insulating floors

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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 23 5:43 pm Post subject:

if the floors are dry the visqueen or whatever is doing its job, that is good

insulation, good fleece membrane(it looks a bit like the stuff for plants) to separate concrete from good underlay to suit the top surface(ask pro flooring folk, not our kevin, as to specs and prices etc for the situation)

probably best easiest comfort per £ rather than more dramatic options

hunt yer damp and kill it, again it is often the correct and quite inexpensive thing that sorts another bit of it

kill it, drive a stake through its heart and then kill again and steal its assets
damp is the biggest font of all problems in most house type buildings

----------------------------------------

if i can i will try to help with the damp stuff, it was a trauma for some clients but "yes we can at a fair price", "its dry rot to you but(don't tell them that bit) it can be mended"

damp best fettled and prevented

i have no idea what your home is made of, what condition it is in, or the surrounding landscape especially the 20 m around it, generic damp advice is not much use. it is very site specific

each half of a semi can have similar symptoms with different causes

quite often a quick look at ground level compared to original ground level gives means of remedy, bridges (bridges are easy) dropping the surface to where it should be is pick and barrow stuff, some things are a 5 min zero or minimal cost job, some need robust interdiction

make it dry will help loads with make it warmer in winter, and it won't fall to bits or get eaten which is always good.

show tell ask

we will try to assist

NorthernMonkeyGirl

Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 4630
Location: Peeping over your shoulder

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 23 7:38 pm Post subject: Re: insulating floors

Nicky cigreen wrote:

As part of my ongoing efforts to increase the insulation in this house, thoughts now turn to the floors. Downstairs floors are all concrete. They are cold. I've read 20% of heat can be lost through floors.

My budget and headspace will not stretch to anything that involves digging up the floors, so solutions will have to be on top, and underneath any flooring - carpets in some rooms - other flooring in kitchen and bathroom.

Any opinions on what to use? Any experience?

If any grants come through for heatpumps / upgraded heating, I gather that using the concrete as a store for underfloor heating can be pretty handy. In which case you want insulation NOT between you and concrete, but between concrete and outside.

However, in the meantime, and as long as it doesn't create changes that cause damp, it sounds like anything to separate you from concrete would be best. You can search various underlays by thermal rating (sometimes, on some websites) and there are also ones that include foil etc to reflect heat around. Confusingly, a lot of "above the slab" insulation is intended to THEN be covered by e.g. plywood then e.g. carpeting.

I think I would be looking for underlays, carpets, and rugs made of mainly natural fibres so I'm not tempting fate re. damp!
I've put new floor in the bathroom over the top of - essentially - polystyrene with a silver foil backing. I think the most obvious change is that the vinyl tiles themselves are not cold to the touch.

How is everything for draughts? An icy blast at ankle height can be very striking and not in a fun way.

Anything relevant here? https://www.engineshed.scot/building-advice/

I currently work with historic building experts, they recoil in horror at the mention of spray foam, and seem to be keen on reverting / understanding the original processes of the building - often including breathability, NOT fully sealing off from outside...

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 23 9:26 pm Post subject:
ace advice ankle wind, bad and often an easy fix

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9887
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 23 9:52 pm Post subject:

dpack wrote:

if i can i will try to help with the damp stuff, ...

thanks Dpack - we have covered this a few times - the main issue is the house is about 4 foot lower than the ground level outside which A I do not own and B has some buildings on it. This house is a lot older than the surrounding buildings and the ground levels have been built up,then built on. So French drains etc are out. The standard advice - and the advice you have given before - is to tank the walls on the inside. Whilst this will contain the damp, historic building experts have advised against the idea as it does push the problems into the original walls which then develop their own problems, including destroying the lime and well.. mud.. holding the stones together. We have already pulled some dodgy cement off the inside walls at their suggestion, and that considerably helped reduce the damp , so I am unlikely to go the tanking route.

indeed the concrete floors are frowned upon, as again these push the damp issues to the walls. It has been suggested the floors be lifted so they can breathe. But I am not about to do that - because budget and headspace.

I also have identified water coming in in another area and am in the process of having that fixed. it does take a long while for these thick walls to dry out after each fix, so it is an ongoing project.

Last edited by Nicky cigreen on Tue Aug 01, 23 10:30 pm; edited 1 time in total

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9887
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 23 10:28 pm Post subject: Re: insulating floors

NorthernMonkeyGirl wrote:

thanks NMG - useful advice. it can be hard to find the balance between breathability and insulation - yes that website agrees with a lot of things I have already been advised, which I find encouraging - I will read further - my house is old and definitely built to let things breathe and have had to learn to work with the house as it was intended - unfortunately in more recent years all sorts of remedies were put in that caused more problems than they solved and I am gradually undoing them.

how did you get on with the vinyl tiles - were they the kind that clicked together? I gather these can handle insulation underneath, and I might put some in the downstairs loo. (well not the actual loo... )

at the moment, for long winded reasons, two downstairs rooms have no covering at all, so anything will be better, but it would be nice to make it cosier

I'll do some research of natural materials. re rugs I am a fan of the thickly woven rag rugs made from cotton - it's recycling of sorts, natural offers some comfort, and most importantly wool moths don't eat them.

You are right about drafts - I am working my way through fixing them all.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15985

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 7:53 am Post subject:

As far as rugs are concerned, unless the moths are really a problem, you can make your own. I made one for our lounge using wool/nylon rug yarn and special canvas using only a bit of wood for a length cutting guide for the wool, a pair of scissors to cut said lengths and a rugging hook. Even more 'green' is cutting lengths of old cloth into strips and pushing them through hessian. Another way is to weave them using cotton string warp and lengths of old cloth with a loom as illustrated in 'Scouting for Boys' and various other books, which could be easily set up in your barn.

Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 9:43 am Post subject:

I particularly appreciate dpack's caveats about the difficulty in generalizing advice about this kind of topic.

I don't know that my perspective from the climate here will apply there...
When I suggested perimeter insulation around the slab, it's with the assumption that there's no insulation under it, but that it sits on a reasonably drained/dry substrate. I also didn't clarify that I was envisioning foamboard going against the entirety of the slab's edge (with the primary goal of slowing heat loss to cold air above grade) but also burying it below grade, with high performance tape at the joints of the foamboard, to seal off the substrate from thermal wicking as well - well to slow it anyway. Here, that would mean splitting 4'x8" sheets of foamboard down the middle, and trying to cover 24" from exterior cladding down into a trench (or split in three and cover 16"-ish). Great care would need to be paid as to the location of any underground power, plumbing, etc.
Exposed foamboard can be covered with flashing.

This would help to limit the concrete from dipping below ground temperature, which is significant here, because air temperatures can be so low for so long over winter, and you may be able to consider the slab and the substrate below it as a bit of thermal mass. You could never expect a retrofit like that to get it to function the way a concrete slab does in a holistically designed passive solar house, but it could help reduce the heat wicking potential of the slab.

I agree that addressing drafts first will be much more bang for your buck. Heat loss via the concrete is nothing relative to cold air intrusion (and associated warm air escaping at the top of the "stack")

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 10:46 am Post subject:

stop any water you can, multi layer lime and good ventilation might be best, you need a lime expert for the is it best and how much£ for that, 4 layer waterproof tanking would just change the problems
i had not remembered it was cob and half buried, i have seen/chatted about so many troubled buildings they blur into a collective like the borg

the root cause of much of the problems is the raised ground level

sorry not to be more help with that

odd thought to which i have no answer, there are assorted ways to reduce water flow in walls and in tunnel world that involve filling the pores with a resin type chemical or cement etc

i wonder if one of them would work in cob n mud walls with a large overfill outside
drill and squirt can be quite inexpensive and rather effective
not a cure but good at relieving symptoms if a cure is impractical for whatever reason

a cure needs a digger and a new hill a decent distance away

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9887
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 11:34 am Post subject:

dpack wrote:

i had not remembered it was cob and half buried, i have seen/chatted about so many troubled buildings they blur into a collective like the borg

that's ok, I appreciate your advice and efforts - and chuckle at the idea of a historic building borg

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 1:34 pm Post subject:
Is the ground outside that you don`t own right up the house wall? How far away from your house wall are the buildings that are on this ground?

NorthernMonkeyGirl

Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 4630
Location: Peeping over your shoulder

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 3:00 pm Post subject:

Re. vinyl tiles and insulation - they can only tolerate a small amount of "squish" because the clicky-together bits are thin and fragile. This underlay I put down was marked for laminate flooring https://www.screwfix.com/p/diall-aquastop-underlay-5m-/2471r

Fitting the underlay sheets was dead easy; fitting the tiles was very fiddly because you need lots of room to manipulate and I didn't have that! I haven't finished off around the toilet base yet... Large rooms and straight runs would be ok I reckon.

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9887
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 3:41 pm Post subject:

Ty Gwyn wrote:

Is the ground outside that you don`t own right up the house wall?

How far away from your house wall are the buildings that are on this ground?

the ground and the buildings are adjacent to my house.

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9887
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 3:42 pm Post subject:

NorthernMonkeyGirl wrote:

thanks

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 23 9:52 pm Post subject:

Nicky cigreen wrote:

Ty Gwyn wrote:

Is the ground outside that you don`t own right up the house wall?

How far away from your house wall are the buildings that are on this ground?

the ground and the buildings are adjacent to my house.

Possibly that ground was belonging to your house at one time?

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9887
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 23 8:56 am Post subject:

Ty Gwyn wrote:

Nicky cigreen wrote:

Ty Gwyn wrote:

Is the ground outside that you don`t own right up the house wall?

How far away from your house wall are the buildings that are on this ground?

the ground and the buildings are adjacent to my house.

Possibly that ground was belonging to your house at one time?

yeh my house was a farm a long time ago, ironically it was probably a previous owner who built up the land and plonked a building right up the the house... then later still it was sold off.

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