Protect your Home from Noise and Heat Loss with Floor Insulation
by Mark Row
The Importance of Floor Insulation
If you were considering adding insulation to your home, this might be the perfect time to protect your home from noise and heat loss with floor insulation. Once the project has been completed, it will not take you much time to realize the importance of proper floor insulation. It will keep your feet warm during the winter but also decrease the level of impact noise deriving from different sources, which can be a great problem if you are living on a bottom floor of a building and have noisy neighbors. Apart from the mentioned, there are many other significant benefits from this type of insulation and, although it can be a time and money consuming task, it is always worth the cost which will be adequately proven in the years to come. So, if you were ever wondering how to add insulation and why, here are your questions answered.
How to Insulate?
Adding floor insulation includes a few simple stages. The first one includes determining the state your floor is in. You will notice that insulation is best added in the construction phase, since that way you will be able to take a closer look at all potential weaknesses and do the job right, without having to worry about whether any floor board will get damaged in the process or your everyday life in any way disrupted. If this is not the case, then you should use the opportunity to add insulation when undertaking some remodeling or reconstruction work such as replacing your floor or repairing a single floorboard. This can not only make the job less complicated but also lower your costs. You can also turn all this around and use the fact that you will have to be lifting the floorboards in order of adding insulation to inspect your floor and determine if it requires any repair work. Anyway, make sure that everything is in order before installing your floor insulation material, that is that there are no gaps or cracks in your floor that may in any way jeopardize or decrease the efficiency of the insulation material added.
Once you are done with necessary repair work, it is time to add some insulation. We recommend that you opt for some material that is not only efficient in the words of both thermal and acoustic insulation, but also easy to install, especially if you are planning on doing the job yourself. This is why the most suitable material, in our humble opinion, is rock or glass wool, preferably packed in rolls, since these can easily be rolled between the floor joists. We are talking about a highly efficient and quality material that has both thermal and acoustic properties, meaning that it will not only prevent heat transfer from one floor to another (which is especially important if your house is built directly onto the ground or you have an unheated and unused basement space beneath) but it will also decrease and control the impact sound to the bottom floors, meaning that you can freely organize a party or a dance lesson within your home without disrupting your neighbors.
All you have to do is measure the entire floor length and purchase your floor insulation material accordingly (always make sure to purchase a few extra cm, so that you can use the excessive material to seal the potential holes and gaps between the insulation and the floorboards). The next step involves rolling the material along the floor joists and attaching it to the joists using a staple gun or some wire to make sure that the insulation will stay in place in the years to come. As before mentioned, use the excessive pieces to seal potential gaps and put back the floor boards on top of added insulation. For additional protection from sound transmission, consider placing a thicker rug or a carpet on top of your insulated floor.
Why?
If you are wondering on how you can benefit from floor insulation, just consider the following:
- Insulation can increase your household’s energy efficiency. By regulating the inner temperature and keeping it unaffected by external conditions, insulation helps you turn down your heating and cooling and thus keep your utility bills down low.
- It can also help you contribute to saving the environment, by reducing the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, which is further on increased if you are opting for some recyclable and eco-friendly insulation materials such as different insulation slabs and batts that contain high level of recyclable and reusable components.
- Let’s not forget the acoustic insulation which is equally important nowadays. If you are living in a building or in a house that has more than one floor, then adding floor insulation will be of great importance in the words of soundproofing.
- There are also the moisture and damp issues to think about. You must be aware of the fact that natural processes taking place under your home foundation are a great source of moisture which can be very dangerous once it reaches your home. It can not only endanger the entire building construction but also jeopardize your health if not dealt in time. Well, insulation will prevent all this from happening.
Finally, adding insulation to any part of your home can drastically increase your home resale value, so if you are considering on selling your home, then it is the perfect time to modernize it with adequate floor insulation.
Compare different insulation products and pick the best one from our wide seletion of floor insulation materials for your home improvement project, or seek advice from our experts through live chat. You are welcome to leave a comment or share the article.