How to Insulate a Floor from the Top
Floor insulation has been the simplest yet the cheapest alternative to keep your property warm during winter. The installation may vary, but the common underfloor installations seems hard and more expensive to be applied to your existing floors. In this case, you may want to learn how to insulate a floor from the top.
Whether you insulate the floor from beneath or under, insulating floor is beneficial for your home. Not only it gives you the comfort, but also decreases your energy consumption as it keeps the warmth for the whole house. It’s proven that floor insulation reduces up to 15% of heat loss through the floor.
When insulating your old homes, the insulation is added underneath the floorboards. That way, you can avoid the heat from escaping into the ground that has cold spaces.
Some may do the floor insulation by filling the gaps between the floors, while other may insulate the overall floor. Different type of floors determines different method of floor insulation.
Before you start looking for contractors or floor insulation installation tutorial, you need to investigate the condition of your existing floors. If you find any moisture problems, we suggest you to reduce them with plastic or any moisture barrier. Once it’s done, you can start insulating the floor.
In this article, we will help you to find out how to insulate floor, one is in a shed floor and the other one is in a wood floor.
How to Insulate a Shed Floor from The Top
When it comes to insulating a shed floor from the top, the steps are quiet easy and don’t require expensive tools. To insulate a shed floor, you will have to lay a layer of the chosen insulation board covering the top of the floor. You can either do the floor insulation over the existing floor or between the joists.
- First of all, remove the shed contents. Next you will have to place the blocks under each joist cavity or lay them down on top of the existing floor. You need to ensure that you put two support blocks as per minimum for each joist cavity.
- Next, you need to cut the rigid foam in different sizes depending on the length of gaps between each floor. Lastly, reinstall flooring once you’re finished with the rigid foam. For best result, cover them with plywood to help stabilize the floor surface.
How to Insulate a Wood Floor from the Top
Wood floors are aesthetically pleasing, but they’re high maintenance and can be very cold. However, floor insulation may help you to keep the heat inside your house. There are two easy and common ways to help you insulating them.
- First, you may want to use carpet or rugs which is the most convenient way to insulate your wooden floor. In this situation, you will have to adjust the carpet to fit the corner of your room. The thicker. To get the best insulation, we recommend you to use a thicker carpet, such as a pure wool carpet material. The thicker the carpet, the more effective the insulation will be.
- Secondly, you might want to try fiber insulation. To give you a brief explanation, fiber insulation is like putting tons of layers of clothing. Fiber will give you a solid barrier between the feet and the floor from the cold weather under the floor. Thus, you must be very careful when installing them as they can cause breathing issue if the fibers are loose.
Quick Tips
If you have timbers floors, we suggest to detach the floorboards from the top first. For other existing floors, you can try installing the floor insulation over the floor joists.
In conclusion, adding floor insulation is beneficial even though you got existing floors already. The floor insulation helps you in reducing energy consumption because the room is easier to heat up.
Aside from that, floor insulation will be such a lifetime investment that will result in higher comfort levels. Though it would be challenging for existing home, it’s still doable.
Now you know how to insulate a floor from the top in many ways you can achieve. Have you decided which floor insulations suits you best?
