Insulating Floor Joists

trophywalleye

Hi All,

My house is a raised bungalow. Garage is on the left and the house and basement is on the right. There is an entrance splitting the two parts of the house. When you walk in the front of the entrance the rear door is straight ahead, with a door to the garage on the left.

My entrance is always freezing cold in the winter. The floor is really cold and I believe its mainly because there is a cubby directly below has the exposed brick foundation and floor slab, neither which is insulated as there is no carpet or drywall. Obviously I'll keep it that way for cold storage, however I would like to insulate the floor joists under this section to help keep my entrance above warm.

Please see the attached photos for reference.

I would like to just insulate it like its a studded wall, however I'm not sure if this is a good method. I say this as normally you vapor barrier on the warm side, but the warm side will be the bottom of the plywood in this case.

Ref Floor Joists 2 x 8 x 16 OC

I don't know if I can rent a insulator sprayer cause I assume that method will be recommended.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

1 Home Layout.JPG (21.9 KB)
2 Looking into the Entrace.JPG (70.2 KB)
3 Entrance Going Down Stairs.JPG (84.0 KB)
4 Under Rear End of Entrance.JPG (62.8 KB)
5 Floor Joists Under Rear Entrance.JPG (66.9 KB)
6 Under Front of Entrance.JPG (54.4 KB)

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trophywalleye

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Gary in WA

Insulate the rim joists and insulate the floor; http://www.rd.com/57548/article57548.html

http://www.buildingscience.com/docum...n-crawlspaces/
And cover the foam board; http://www2.iccsafe.org/cs/committee...E_06_64_07.pdf
Insulate that pipe, if a heat supply.

Gary

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fungku

you can insulate the floor or the foundation walls.

it is common here to insulate the foundation walls and heat it the crawlspace, instead of insulating the floors. The reason is because of water supplies come up through the crawlspace.

If it were my house I would consider VB & insulation on the foundation walls and rim.
-if you have uninsulated and unsealed heat ducts running through the crawlspace, then it would be considered "heated".

edit: in what region do you live?

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mjzraz

This link isn't working for me

trophywalleye

I live in North Eastern Ontario.

I do not want to insulate the basement slab floor or brick walls. I plan on keeping this a cold room, even if that means I need to insulate the hot air ducts.

I do however want to make sure the floor upstairs is warm. My newly acquired home seems like there's lots of little things that require improvement to make this a more energy efficient and warm house. For instance, I noticed that whoever installed the sliding doors in our bedroom, shimmed the doors but did not foam the cracks, and just put the floor trim on. The cold air that blows into our house is unbelievable there. I tried my best to foam it, but the idiots who shimmed it, shimmed on two levels, the top (directly under the door) was spaced so I could foam it, but the bottom shims are spaced so tiny that I can't foam it... Plus spray foam does not work well in the cold. Makes me wonder what else is going on. I noticed that none of the heating ducting is taped at the joints. Sigh...

So the final conclusion on my entrance floor temperature issues is...

Josh

fungku

If you don't want to insulate the foundation walls, then insulate your floors and ducts.

I like figure 7 in the building science link that GBR posted. You should probably read that page.

and I think you need a minimum R28 in a floor.

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Gary in WA

Apparently that link doesn’t link….. Info-408: Critical Seal (Spray Foam at Rim Joist ) — Building ...

http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings...s/db/35379.pdf

Gary

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