It's too cold. It's too wet. There isn't enough room. It's too expensive, and, anyway, heat rises! Can you think of any other excuses why you shouldn't insulate the floor of your home immediately?
Yes, heat rises. But heat also travels toward cold regardless of the direction. Therefore, if the area outside your floor is cold, heat will attempt to travel down and through your floor to get to it.
If the subarea or basement is wet, the heat will continue through the floor and vaporize the moisture on the ground below. The vaporized moisture will rise and condense on the floor above, and before long mildew will appear.
If it's too cold, too wet, and there isn't much room between the ground and the floor, you have the best combination of reasons to insulate your floor. In the winter when heat wants out, we call it heat loss. In the summer when heat wants in, it's heat gain. In both cases heat is chasing cold.
There normally isn't much heat loss through a floor because heat does rise. Therefore most heat is lost in the ceiling. But heat loss through the floor and the vaporization of moisture can be a serious problem.
Insulating the floor reduces the loss of heat substantially, helps to control condensation and generally helps to keep tootsies warm when one goes barefoot through the kitchen and other uncarpeted areas.
If you have hardwood floors you should be especially interested in insulating them from damage. We have seen instances where high humidity, cold temperatures, moist earth and an uninsulated floor resulted in warped planks of hardwood flooring.
Insulation can cause itching and can make your life miserable for several days after contact if you fail to take precautions.
Don't try doing the job yourself. You'll need a helper. Someone to cut material and pass it under the house.
WEAR PROTECTIVE CLOTHING and once you have completed the job, VACUUM YOURSELF BEFORE UNDRESSING.
The biggest single complaint we get from people who have installed insulation for the first time is that they itched incessantly for a week after the job was done and that it hurt.
All will be all right if you take the time to duct-tape your sleeves to your wrists, your shirt or blouse collar to your neck and your cuffs to your ankles. You will also want to tape all other open parts of your clothing shut. Don't forget a hood, goggles, gloves and a breathing mask.
If the only access to the subarea is from a crawl space inside the home, you will need a few large plastic trash bags. You measure and place, and your helper cuts and delivers.
Cutting should be done outside the house. After being cut, the insulation should be placed in a plastic trash bag and sent to you in the subarea via a piece of quarter-inch plywood or Masonite even a piece of pegboard will do with a long rope tied to each end. One rope is for you to pull the insulation toward you and the other for your helper to pull back the empty plywood cart. The cart won't require wheels.
A hammer tacker is a staple gun that is used like a hammer. Aim, whack, and the staple is in. A hammer tacker will temporarily hold the insulation in place until you install something more permanent, such as insulation netting.
Lightning rods, so named for their speed in installation, are also handy for floor insulation. They are lightweight, flexible steel rods that hold the insulation in place by spring tension. One end of the rod is placed against the side of a floor joist and bent slightly so that the other end is forced into place against the face of the opposite joist.
The easiest part of this job is putting the insulation in place. Remember the paper or foil backing is installed toward the house, the insulation side away from it.
