insulation under floorboards/cellar ceiling..what to use?

emma_b_4

hi
we are wanting to insulate under the floors of kitchen and living room, we have original floorboards that obvioulsy have some slight gaps in between. we have a fulll cellar downstairs so the floor of the room and kitchen is the cellar ceiling, the cellar is cold and we are thining could we put anythign on the ceiling, ie nder the floor of kitchen etc, to seal it a little bit?
my OH says we have to be careful to leave air gaps so hes thinking ply board but we are open to ideas and would really appreciate some advice on this!

thankyou very much for help

economiser

I think I would use sheets of rigid insulation. There are one or two makes of which I think Kingspan is one. You could also use rigid polystyrene which would be cheaper but less robust. Plyboard would be OK to stop the drafts but would not provide much in the way of insulation unless you put fibreglass on top of it.

in_my_wellies

This is not very serious but my dad was an expert Money Saving Expert before computers were invented so I thought I would share it anyway.

We had a cellar and gaps in the boards.

He took up the old carpet and sanded the floor. Then he nailed the old carpet UNDER the floor. We all had to help hold it up and it was hard work!! He stretched it to fit, starting from the middle and packed the gap as we worked out towards the edges with screwed up newspaper.

It made a huge difference.

shockingmoment

we had the same problem.
I fitted 1" thick expanded polystyrene. comes in 8' x 4' sheets from a builders merchants. cheap enough. cut into strips to fit between the joists.held in place with short 4" battens every couple of feet.

massive difference!

goes up quickly too. don't need more than 1" as its just needed to keep the draughts out

Mr_Proctalgia

I have done my floors with standard rockwool held up with garden netting stapled to the joists, been there about 10 years now.

emma_b_4

thankyou for your ideas i have printed them out and given them to OH for inspiration! was it a hard job to do?