Utility Room. Will I need to insulate the floor?

[Block642]

Hi All,

I have a utility room built on the side of my kitchen. It is a long narrow room nestled between the house and a high retaining wall. At either end there is a single skin block wall (both with exterior doors). The roof is made of poly-carbonate sheets. Within the room we currently have washing machine, dryer and the combi boiler.

The roof has started to leak and needs some attantion. Rather than replace like for like I would like to get a single pitched roof on it. I would also like to knock down the two single skin walls and replace with cavity walls. Finally I want to put stud wall up and use part of the room as a downstairs toilet.

I got a builder round for a quote and he seems to think that Building control would want the floor to be insulated. I think that this is going to add a huge unecessary cost to the project. Does anyone have any experience of this and will I have to do this??

Thanks for any help.

 

[tony1851]

Strictly speaking the floor should be insulated, but it is often not cost effective when compared with wall- and roof insulation.
If its only a small utility area, why bother the council with it anyway?

 

[paulf1976]

The council will want to check the toilet drainage as well. It is likely your utility room is not classed as a useable room. Putting a proper roof and walls on is controllable work in its own right so they will assume other 'thermal elements' will need insulating aswell.

Consider two things, do you want to do it right? And do you want potential issues when selling your house in the future. A lack of certification and/or an energy inneficient building is not always a selling point!