best way to insulate concrete slab floor?
hello all, this really doesnt pertain to my basement since we dont have one. but what we DO have is a house with concrete slab for our floor. the home used to be crawl space on one side and just slab on the other, we've been going through an extensive remodel and part of that was filling in the crawl space (60 tons of gravel with wheel barrows ) and just pouring an entire new slab that covered the newly filled crawl space and the old slab. now, while plumbing, walls, electrical and so forth have taken priority its coming time soon to work on the flooring. we intend to cover the slab with that laminate hardwood looking stuff but the winter here in PA has made me wonder if theres something i can do to help with the cold floors. i was at home depot earlier this week and saw that pink styrofoam insulation comes in folded-up 3/8 thick 200 square foot bundles, while it has an r-value of only 1.5 i figured it would be better than nothing. from what i can tell the 3/8 plus the thickness of the laminate and the foam underlay stuff that goes under the laminate will just fall short of being a problem for floor clearance of the interior doors. so i guess what i am askng is weather or not this is a good idea, or if anyone has a better solution. thanks in advance for your time Russ Russ: sorry for answering so late, but your post slipped past the date line, and I missed it. Placing the 3/8 fanfold under the flooring, then the underlayment material and laminate, will allow too much give in the flooring, and could possibly crack it at the joints. I would check with the manufacturer of the laminate and see if they recommend certain rigidity requirements for substrate. The underlayment material used with the laminate has a vapor barrier, and it will give some, not much, insulation value. For my Northern Michigan basement floor I plan to use DriCore. www.dricore.com Home Depot sells it. DriCore provides an R value of 2, and they say it will warm a room by 6 or 7 degrees. Maybe it will work for your situation. Cost is about $5 for a 2'x2' square, or about $1.25 per square foot. John larry, a late answer is far better than none... at first i thought my topic had been deleted or lost when i went back to look for it but i had the same problem as you. thanks for shedding some light on a potential problem i hadnt thought about, i'll try to get ahold of the manufacturer and see what they say. john, i originally looked at dricore and was sold on the idea, while it appeared a little costly it seemed like a good solution... problem is that its too high off the floor and id have to cut a lot of doors for it to fit under them and re-frame two openings for sliding closet doors. thanks for the input and info though. any other ideas guys? how about... http://www.deltams.com/bvf/ca-en/products/floor/products/FL.php I am planning to use it for my basement floor before putting wood/carpet on it. It is unfortunate you didn't post prior to pouring the concrete. The best way to insulate a concrete floor is by install insulation underneath it. You could have even install a heated floor system. I'm not sure if you will find anything better than the Dricore which is thinner. The costs would not make anything else worthwhile. I installed laminate in my basement without a subfloor and it is comfortable. Ensure you have proper supplygrills in the ceiling and good cold air return located near the floor. This will help balance out the air temperature and remove the cold air off the floor. well, i heard back from the manufacturer two days ago about the laminate flooring being laid on top of that pink folded insulation like larry recommended... they were of the same opinion as larry and squashed that idea. jeet49, ive seen that product before but lost interest and forgot about it because i couldnt find any pricing at all anywhere online. i think im going to have to try and check it out again and see how it goes. even if it doesnt work well, as long as the cost isnt too great i wont be disappointed. thanks! em69, it was going to run me 12 grand for a radiant floor heat system, i did the installation of the one we have myself for around 1,500. so while i wanted the radiant heat very badly it was a no-contest between the two choices. i didnt even skip the radiant because it was too expensive, but because it was impossible to fit into my budget at the time. from what your experience has been saying the laminate installed in your basement is comfortable makes me more than half tempted to just go ahead with my original plan and put the flooring down and hope its not nearly as cold as the concrete, thanks everyone so far, any other ideas are welcomed greatly as well. Russell
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