Suspended wooden floor. Insulation vs gap filling

[pilsbury]

In an ideal world I'd insulate underneath my lounge suspended wooden floor, but it's looking a bit tricky. The floorboards are tongue and grooved and in good order. There are a couple of boards that have been cut about a foot long that I can lift and just look under showing a crawl space of about 18" and 2 supporting walls for the joist span. To me, getting under there and accessing the whole space is looking very unlikely.

I'm going to sand and finish the floor soon and fill the gaps with a resin/sawdust mix to stop draughts. My thinking is that the cold draughts will cause the room to be colder than the conducted cold from the wood.

Any thoughts?

 

[JohnD]

Carpet.

 

[pilsbury]

Sure thing that would work a treat. But I'm kind of after the floorboard look.

 

[endecotp]

18" is not impossible.
Find out what pub your local caving club meet in, and see if anyone can be persuaded to do it for you for a few £££.
(Serious suggestion. If I had 18" under my boards I'd be happy; I have 7cm. I was a caver in my youth. I can still squeeze through a wire coathanger.)

 

[pilsbury]

18" is not impossible.
Find out what pub your local caving club meet in, and see if anyone can be persuaded to do it for you for a few £££.
(Serious suggestion. If I had 18" under my boards I'd be happy; I have 7cm. I was a caver in my youth. I can still squeeze through a wire coathanger.)

Get your caving gear out the loft and be round my house 8am sharp...... there's some treasure buried under there somewhere but you'll need to staple up some rock wool to find it..... I think

 

[iwilson16]

It will be very hard, if not impossible, to fill every gap. And without that, the room is likely to feel very draughty.

Checkout the Restoration Couples videos on YouTube ... they lifted the boards and insulated and draughtproofed before relaying them.

Alternatively ... plyboard to to give a smooth surface, then fit laminate.

I covered up the varnished floorboards in my Edinburgh flat with plywood and carpet. Best thing i did. Room is a lot cosier.

Ian

 

[pilsbury]

I fully understand the logic behind underlay and carpeting. No doubt at all that provides good draught proofing and insulation. But my floorboards are really nice and the room has oak wood trim on the walls and is crying out to have the floor shown a bit of love.... or a big sander!

That's my thought behind simply sanding and gap filling to cut out some of the cold as the insulating is looking like a nightmare.

 

[John D v2.0]

You're right about the draughts, there's no way to heat a room with gaps all over efficiently!
We literally prised up every floorboard, celotexed between the joists, and then laid a polythene sheet to stop the draughts. Once I found the right technique for pulling up floorboards (and ear defenders to wear) I could do them very quickly without any damage. I think you just need to find the first one and work from there.
However having said that t&g should stop the draughts so you can just seal the edges.

 

[r896neo]

I did my own by sawing out the tongues with a very fine circular saw blade. Celotexed between the joists and then overlaid with 12mm ply and caulked all joints. Then I relaid the boards. Its very warm and there are no draughts but its hugely disruptive. I did it because we were replimbing and rewiring completely anyway. But its absolutely worth it.

 

[Gerrydelasel]

Sure thing that would work a treat. But I'm kind of after the floorboard look.

Ah yes, very trendy at the moment. Here's the floorboard look in a couple of years:

 

[motorbiking]

years ago I spent a month infilling the wooden floorboards with white wood to get a sort of classic italian speed boat look when sanded and varnished, took ages, but the tiniest gap resulted in a jet of cold air being vacuumed in during the winter months. The next year I laid a cherry engineered wood on top with 10mm underlay, made a huge difference. One thing to check, is that you have no hessian lagged radiator pipes in the void.

But I'd really think hard about lifting and insulating, it will make a big difference. If you have pipes in the void, its going to be costing you £100-200 a year in lost energy.

 

[geraldthehamster]

I've lifted floorboards and insulated. It's impossible to do it without some damage to the floorboards. Worth doing from a warmth point of view. But unless you want a lot of work I would consider doing what we did in our last house. Don't disturb the floor but put down some nice Persian rugs. That is, carpets, but not fitted carpets. You can still see the wooden floor round the edges, and you can move or change carpet as you like. Best of both worlds.

Cheers
Richard

 

[Tigercubrider]

If lifting boards, a mate mitigated the broken boards issue by borrowing boards from other rooms which were to be carpeted. ( replaced with new obviously!)

Also think he used a worx type saw as an aid

 

[geraldthehamster]

Most of the visible damage is caused around the brads