Insulate Basement Floor With Rigid Foam

Concrete basement floor.

Insulate basement floor with rigid foam.

There are several ways to install subflooring above the rigid foam. If your basement slab lacks sub slab foam you ll have to install the insulation above the slab. If the basement floor is wet hire a professional find the source of the problem and fix it before doing anything. Insulating the basement this way creates a thermal break between the air inside your basement and the air outside.

Use a premade kit for this type of project. Energy savings are about the same whether you insulate on the interior or exterior. Place your rigid foam insulation between the sleepers in the open areas. It gets rid of any air movement behind the walls.

If the concrete floor is dry and reasonably level insulate directly on top with a rigid foam insulation that is impervious to moisture air leakage and radon gas. The best insulation to use is rigid foam which is largely unaffected by moisture. Step 4 install the insulation. Once the insulation has been placed you will want to cover it up with plywood.

Step 5 cover with plywood. For a basement remodeling project consider insulating basement walls with foam board. I posted on the basement insulation site but i ve developed my thinking a little more and now ponder whether this would work for the concrete basement floor that i very much want to finish in ceramic tile 6 poly 1 xps foam 3 4 advantech 1 2 hardibacker thinset and 1 4 tile. Foam board insulation is easy to cut with a circular saw with a masonry blade or scored with a utility knife and snapped like you would drywall.

Except for the deep south. For new construction use rigid boards to insulate slabs and the outside of foundation walls. You can use either one or two layers of plywood or osb and the subflooring can either be fastened to the concrete with long tapcon screws or it can simply float above the foam. You may need to cut the insulation down with a utility knife to make sure it fits properly between each grid.

Attach the tongue and groove insulation boards to the concrete wall with adhesive. Basement wall insulation is recommended in most of the u s. Rigid foam is combustible so by code must be sealed in by a thermal barrier of either drywall or 5 5 of roxul with the latter providing added insulation in a critical heat loss zone provide sound dampening to the above floor. It s like a beer cooler which has rigid foam insulation too.