Insulation between ground and first floors?.

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15 Apr 2007
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Invernesshire
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United Kingdom
Hi,
I haven't been able to find a definitive answer to the question of insulating between joists on ground floor kitchen ceiling/first floor bedroom floor.
In this case the pros seem to be :-
I have enough spare 170mm loft insulation to do the job.
Having insulated with this under the kitchen floor it definitely cuts down noise transmission. The bedroom floor is only 18mm chipboard.
The house will be occupied by older people who will be using downstairs most of the time.
Could anyone advise me if there is some real downside to doing this, like increased fire risk or hellish condensation problems?.
 
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Advantages

It will cut down noise transmission.
It will improve fire resistance ( assuming the 170 mm is rock/fibre wool).

Disadvantage

It will make bedrooms colder because you have minimised heat-transfer through floor. This heat will now be trapped against the kitchen ceiling.

How much heat depends on the type of heating you have. It will be much more with high-temperature systems like radiators than with underfloor-heating

You would need to check on what wiring (if any ) would be covered by this insulation . The standard advice is that no wiring should be covered , but in prcatice lighting circuits are too low-powered to be a problem. What you need to avoid is wiring for major consumers like immersion-heater and especially electric-showers being covered.

As long as the bedrooms are heated to a reasonable temperature, there will be no condensation problems between the floors.
 
Wow, that was a fast reply, do you guys never sleep,(or go out walking in the mountains!). It's a super day for mountain walking here today, fresh snow on the tops down to about 2500ft and snowing now at Glencoe ski centre I hear.
Thanks for your time, it all seems very logical so I have a happy couple of hours work ahead this afternoon.
Thanks again.
 
Low cloud and steady snow all morning at 1,400 m so not really a day for celebrating the great outdoors. :cry:
 
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Low cloud and steady snow all morning at 1,400 m so not really a day for celebrating the great outdoors. :cry:
Don`t complain - France has the same number of people as UK and twice the landmass : so you have half the chance of meeting a prat :idea: - But then again , knowing the French ;)
 
Nige

Your comment got me interested so I looked up the relative population densities.

Where I live has 16 people per km2 vs 345 per km2 in England so even less chance than you thought :D ( except that when the snow is on the ground the population multiplies by a factor of 20 ! )

Still, slip on a pair of snow-shoes and walk in the woods and meet (probably ) nobody.
 
if you have a rad in every room i dont see how it would be a problem "stopping heat" getting into these rooms as the room above will be heated the same temp as the room below, so they are both going to be the same temp

so if you didint insulate the upstairs would get warmer than the kitchen cos it would get heat from rad AND from kitchen.

so you have a colder kitchen if u dont inslutate!

i wouldnt class trapping heat as a CON myself
 

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