1930 Wooden Floors - Insulation

[Boyd350]

Hi
My wife would like laminate flooring - I feel that with our 1930s house we could purely take up carpets, sand and stain to whatever colour we like.
My wife says 'NO' as it would be too draughty. We brought the house 13 years ago and took everything back to basics so were without carpets for 3/4 months or so - it ideed was draughty so I accept what she says about it being draughty with no floor covering/carpet.
I am establishing now whether this issue has been explored before, hense why I'm on DIYnot from one of my Google searches.
It appears that I could take up floor boards and insulate level to the bottom of the roof joists. I thinks my joist will be 6"x2"s so would I be best adding a small lip on the side of the joist near the bottom stopping the insulation sections falling through? I guess the space below the joists is there for a reason, below the joists is bare each. Does anyone know what the reason is? I could trim the foam insulation to fit between the joists then fill gaps with expanding foam. I would use roof-mate type hard foam, which I know comes in 100mm thickness, fitting well under the floors but not protruding below the bottom of the joists. Does anyone like the? sound of this option or are there any other ideas which I should consider.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

What you are proposing has been posted may 5374 times already. You can use a rigid insulation any more than about 90mm would be overkill something Kingspan or Celotex. Alternatively you can use polystyrene but would need a thicker layer. Rigid insulation can be supported on battens fixed to the joists or nails popped into the sides of the joists. Seal any gaps with foam as you say. Important bit: ensure whatever insulation you use is touching the underside of your floor boards. The void beneath the joists should be well ventilated to the open air via air bricks in the walls just above ground level. If they're are none you should fit some.

Alternatively you can fit rockwool insulation supported on chicken wire.

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[Dhillon]

You may not need to lift all the floorboards if the void (crawl space) underneath is big enough to crawl around in. In our house the ground floor void is a good 1.5 to 2 feet and dry, removing two boards would allow me crawl around and fit insulation if needed.

Sanded and finished our pine floors myself and though we have plenty of air bricks there are no draughts