insulating gap underneath bungalow

Klug

Hi
Any insulation experts out there please?

Our 1920's bungalow is built 'high', in that we have steps up to the front door from the street. Underneath the floor downstairs is a storage void the entire area of the bungalow, and deep enough to crawl into. The floor in the bunglow seems to be consistently cold and we were wondering if it would be possible to insulate the floor from underneath and if so, how would we do it and using what sort of insulation?

Many thanks for all ideas

MX5huggy

Presuming you are not going to rip up the floor. You have to crawl under there with rolls of insulation cut to the width between the floor joists and then roll it out and hold it up to the underside of the joists with some netting or sum such that you staple gun to the underside of the joists. The problem will be the narrowness of the gap and the dirt down there.

If the floor is coming up then there are loads of other options.

latecomer

done exactly this in our front 2 rooms and I personally am not sure about the difference. It was a pretty horrible job despite having reasonable clearance to work in - I can sit up kneeling at the front without banging my head so approx 4' going down to about 2.5-3' at the back of the rooms.

ormus

houses built in that period often had voids like yours underneath the ground floor. suspended.
our 1935 semi has the same void. about 4ft high.

anjb

I've done it (1930s house). I think it makes a difference but not as much as I would have expected. ( I didnt have carpets when I bought it)
Two choices: loft insulation on chicken wire between joists ( I did this). Or Celotex or equiv on batterns.
Quite messy as said.
I took up the floor, but it was up for other reasons.
In hindsight would have put down underlay with a larger TOG value than current.
HTH

27col

Heat rises, so heat lost through a floor will be fairly minimal. You might well achieve the same effect by installing better underlay. But, if you want to insulate under the floor, then the methods already suggested will work quite well. You can hold the insulation up against the underside of the boards just by stapling a bird's nest of string under there to keep it in place. just make sure that you have some head protection as there is no way that you avoid knocking your head at least a couple of times.

latecomer

if you have bare boards with gaps then it will cut down on the drafts.

Klug

Thanks to all those who have suggested remedies.
Guess what we're doing throught the summer then, lol!

latecomer

Get yourself a good quality face mask to protect you from the amount of dust and particles from the insulation in the confined space.

LisaLou1982

MX5huggy wrote: »

Presuming you are not going to rip up the floor. You have to crawl under there with rolls of insulation cut to the width between the floor joists and then roll it out and hold it up to the underside of the joists with some netting or sum such that you staple gun to the underside of the joists. The problem will be the narrowness of the gap and the dirt down there.

If the floor is coming up then there are loads of other options.

What Huggy said!