How to make warmer a room with boarded floor and cellar underneath

kuepper

My kitchen is freezing. It has an open plan staircase leading upstairs and there is a cellar below it with just a 2'6" square one trap door entrance. The cellar has no ceiling other than the kitchen floor which is just varnished boards laid on joists. There is a vent from the cellar to outside, presumably to allow air to circulate to prevent dry rotted starting. I'm guessing that as warm air rises it sucks cold air up through every slight gap between walls and boards and between the boards. Is there a way to make the room warmer?

AndyMc.....

Insulate the kitchen floor form below.

kuepper

AndyMc..... wrote: »

Insulate the kitchen floor form below.

How do I do be that / what options?

Fire_Fox

To reduce warm air disappearing up the stairs, enclose the opening by installing a door and frame or heavy drapes. Ready made single door curtains are widely available (eg. Dunelm/ Argos), or some IKEA pairs of curtains are available in very long lengths. The MSE alternative to thermal linings are fleece blankets.

For insulation, experts recommend that drapes run floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, and that gaps between panels are closed. Ways of achieving this include using a curtain track rather than a pole and brackets or fitting a pelmet at the top, using hook and loop tape (Velcro) or sewing magnets at the sides of each panel, sewing weights in the hem.

HTH.

-taff

insulation of the type you prefer and plasterboard or ply or something that won't be affected too much by damp


Fill the space between the joists with insulation, nail or screw the boards to the joists afterwards.