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Tool Talk Discussion Forum

Insulating floor of house

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Stan in Oly, WA

02-15-2007 10:50:19




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I'm upgrading the insulation in my house. The walls have blown-in cellulose, the attic has a small amount of some kind of nasty, loose insulation which is yellow, the floor over an unheated crawlspace is uninsulated.

I can't find any quantitative information online about the actual benefit of insulating the floor. I'll undoubtedly end up using the maximum amount of insulation there because it's worth the few hundred dollars' difference between R-30 and R-38 to me to not argue with my wife. I contend, however, that the incremental benefit of insulating the floor is the lowest of any part of the house because the cold of the crawlspace doesn't rise to chill the house and the warm air in the living space rises to lose heat against the ceiling and upper walls, not against the floor.

Put simply, I suspect that the benefit of every additional unit of R value in the floor is far less than in the attic, and possibly that the benefit of additional insulation in the floor is negligible beyond some point (like R-19 or R-25) but I can't find data to show it.

Stan

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Boley

02-16-2007 23:45:02




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
We built our house in '87,it has a half basement with the floor over the crawlspace insulated with fiberglass bats paper side down.We used thermax on the outside walls and thermopane windows and doors.We use electric heat,a pair of 15 kw heat strips in our central air conditioning unit.Our average electric bill is $90 for a 1800 sq ft house on a 1100 sq ft basement.We were presented with a new meter thanks to the "meter replacement program"a couple of years ago,offered to those thought to be stealing electricity.My bride says this is the first warm house she's ever lived in.We were careful to seal and caulk every gap we could see as the house went up,this paid off.No bugs,no mice,and it's almost as good as a thermos bottle in regard to the heating and cooling of it.We live in a temperate zone,zero to hundred degrees in extremes.I think insulating the floor is worth doing.

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big fred

02-16-2007 21:07:33




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
It helps the comfort level, 'cause the floor is where your feet are. Might as well go to at least R-25, I think that's what the Washington State Energy Code requires for new construction nowadays. I have R-30 in mine, and it's nice and comfy, even with hardwood floors, and even when we had that cold snap here in W Wa a few weeks ago.



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RickL

02-16-2007 06:01:16




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
I just got done doing house redo,stripped the house from the outside in to the drywall inside,injsulated moretwo layers R board amd new siding with inch insulation on it, 7 new windows, on and on anyway also insulated under the house where could get to it,yes do it no comparison now. I did it using rolls that fit between two by tens then put R board all across the bottom sealing it in. No comparison now

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Mark in Mi

02-15-2007 20:07:02




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
Don't insulate floor.Put plastic down and have polyurathane sprayed on inside of crawl space walls 4 inches thick from ground up to floor.Seals her up tight as a drum.Remember air drafts are the number one killer on the ole heat bill.Mark



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MarkB_MI

02-15-2007 18:59:09




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
Although it's true that the air near the floor isn't has warm as the air near the ceiling, that doesn't mean you shouldn't insulate the floor. The warmer the floor, the less likely it is your wife will want to crank up the thermostat because her feet are cold.



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Midwest redneck

02-15-2007 14:40:05




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
Here is what I did when I built my house in 1999. I have a 2300' sq ranch on a 5 block crawl space. Code required me to do most of the following: My house has... 1. R10 foam board glued to the block all the way around the outside. 2. Inbetween the joist I have R13 insulation. 3. All the crawl vents, 18 total have insulation stuffed in the vent behind the vent louver. 4. 6 mil visqueen under pea gravel. My house has all heat ducts in the crawl and plumbing, so it stays 55F in the crawl in 0F weather and my house is kept at 68F. In the summer the crawl is 65F when it is 95F outside. Insulating the crawl is a must to keep the floors warm. And you would hate to have pipes burst or freeze.

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Stumpalump

02-15-2007 17:05:56




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Midwest redneck, 02-15-2007 14:40:05  
Don't you need the vents to keep it dry? Like attic vents.



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Midwest redneck

02-15-2007 17:19:16




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stumpalump, 02-15-2007 17:05:56  
Yes, but only in Summer are the vents open. Air flow is not needed in the winter.



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zacsdad

02-15-2007 13:46:48




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
I have two bedrooms and a bathroom over an unheated crawl space. The floors are insulated with 6" of fiber glass applied paper side toward the heated area. We live in SE PA.

The biggest benefit I can see is that it helps a lot with both Temperature and Dampness. The insulation under the bathroom has taken a beating from moisture over the years and a lot of it is hanging down. Looks kind of like a badly trimmed beard I once had. Some of the bats have fallen out completely. Yup, I'll be fixing it....BUT...here's my question...

Should I staple something like a moisture barier (Tyvek?) to the bottoms of the floor joists to seal off (and hold up) the fiberglass bats...or will this cause a moisture buildup in the bats themselves and just create another problem?

Ideas?

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old

02-15-2007 14:56:17




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to zacsdad, 02-15-2007 13:46:48  
I would put some chicken wire under there to hold the stuff up and then maybe even add some more to it when your under there. Never hurts to have more but sure does hurt if you don't have enough. Plus the chicken wire is for the most part cheap and will also help keep things like rats out



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zacsdad

02-16-2007 07:58:00




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to old, 02-15-2007 14:56:17  
the chicken wire idea sounds great. 'preciate the input...thx



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Joel Harman

02-15-2007 14:50:12




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to zacsdad, 02-15-2007 13:46:48  
staple some plastic baling twine between joists to help hold the insulation in place. Maybe every foot or so



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johns48jdb

02-15-2007 12:16:56




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
in n al we insulate the floors with the paper side always toward the living space. we put plastic down on the ground underneath too to help with dampness and radon gas. i have that loose chipped up newspaper stuff in my attic. it has become packed down since 86 when it was put in, so i've been toying with the idea of taking a piece of 1/2 water pipe and putting a short piece of pipe on the end of it with a 90 deg elbow and hook the other end to an air compressor and going along and "fluffying" up the insulation up there to trap air back in it again. any thoughts?

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Wyokid

02-15-2007 12:09:17




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
Stan,
FYI winter heating ouside design temp for Olympia is 18*, when I was in the consulting business used to do a lot of designs for northern US and canada, witer outdoor design temps of -25* to -40*.



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IH2444

02-15-2007 11:52:44




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
One consideration, will insulating the floor cause pipes to freeze under there ?



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RonND

02-15-2007 11:33:29




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
From my limited understanding, cold is basically a lack of heat (energy) and therefore when cold and hot are next to each other, they will try and balance out...I think that might be the very basics of thermal dynamics, etc.



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Reply

02-16-2007 03:55:11




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to RonND, 02-15-2007 11:33:29  
To add to what your saying , they try to balance out at 32 degrees. You will need a lot more BTU's to start bringing that temp up from 32



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Wyokid

02-15-2007 11:27:05




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
Stan,
In a lot of respects heat flow (loss) is dumb as far as the direction it goes i.e. up, down or sideways. The basic equation is Q = UA delta T (Q is heat loss in BTU/hr, U is the inverse value of R value (insulation) and delta T is the temperature difference between the inside and outside). The U value is modified by a number the is driven by the direction of heat loss with up flow being the worst case (ceiling), next is horizontal (wall/windows) and down (floor) last. The heat loss thru the floor to an unheated crawl space is probably 2/3 the loss to the attic (rough ball park number) since the method for finding an average winter temperature for an attic and the average winter temperature for a crawl space involve different assumptions and methodolgies. After all this being said your basic thought is correct, more bang for the buck insulating the attic, but I would think that R-25 would probably adequate (depending on where you live). HTH

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old

02-15-2007 11:11:22




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 Re: Insulating floor of house in reply to Stan in Oly, WA, 02-15-2007 10:50:19  
Lets see if I can explain it as I have read in books that I have. The first couple of R value you raise it does the most then from there its gravy so to speak. So if you go with say R-5 in the floor it will help a lot but as you increase the R value it helps in smaller amounts. But yes you need to insulate the floors as the cold does come up. The room I'm in right now has 0 insulation in the floor and I can sit here and feel the cold comeing up right now. I hope to fix that this spring. As far as the ceiling in my area its said you need at least an R-39, where you are probably even more. Te ceiling is where you loose the most heat because it rises. Hope that helps, if I knew where the book was that I read that in I would say I could send you the info but I don't know where it is at this time

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