We all know that the floor is the coldest surface in any room. Even if the room is warm enough, the floor can still be cool. And this is a completely logical explanation. Cold air can penetrate into the apartment from a damp basement, through inter-panel overlapping and crevices in the corners. And the more these slots expand, the more we pay for heating, and in the rooms it still does not get warmer. So, it's time to take care of the insulation of the floor in the apartment. This will significantly reduce heat loss and will contribute to creating a more comfortable climate in our rooms. And then the first question is: how to insulate the floor in the apartment.
Technology of insulation of concrete floors
For the insulation of the floor there are such materials:
- glass wool and mineral wool - fireproof, have good heat and sound insulation, but they are hygroscopic and need a vapor barrier;
- polystyrene foam and polystyrene - moisture resistant, are not subject to fire and deformation;
- chips, expanded clay, arbolite - loose materials, relatively inexpensive and have good thermal insulation.
As you can see, you can insulate the floor in an apartment using different materials, however you should choose suitable for your apartment.
Most often in our apartments the basis of the floor is the reinforced concrete slabs. There are several options for insulation of concrete floors. Let's look at one of them: warming the floor on the lags.
- The scheme of insulation of the concrete floor along the logs, from which it can be seen that the insulation must be located between the flooring and the slab, is shown in the figure.
- We remove the old screed from the concrete slabs, remove all debris and dust. First you need to lay on the concrete waterproofing, which you can use as an ordinary polyethylene film or buy a special vapor barrier material. Such a cover must be lapped over the floor and even wound on adjacent walls. Now we install wooden logs on the film at a distance of 60 to 90 cm from each other. If you make a step between them large, then in the future your floors can sag.
- Between the lags, very tightly to them, we lay roll insulation (foam plastic or glass wool). The thickness of the insulation for the floor should be not less than 100 mm.
- Now it's left to floor the floor. It can be dense plywood, particle board, gypsum plaster and other materials. And it will be better if you put such sheets in two layers. In this case, the seams of the lower layer must be covered with upper sheets. So you exclude the possibility of penetration of cold through the joints of the coating. Using the screws, we attach the sheets to the wooden logs.
- We make the finish coat, for example, we lay on the insulated floor a laminate or linoleum.
So we insulated the floor in the apartment, and now in winter the cold through it will not penetrate.