How to Insulate Your Floor

To help keep your floors warmer and reduce your heating bills, it is a good idea to insulate your floors. It is not a difficult process and it will help keep chilly air drafts out of your home.

Safety First
Whenever you are putting in insulation, always make sure you are wearing long sleeves, gloves, a facemask and goggles. Fiberglass insulation can have some nasty chemicals in it that you don’t want to come into contact with.

Installing Floor Insulation
Floor installation is usually done from above but if you are looking to do your basement, then it will be much easier and cheaper to do it from below. However, you will need to lift your floorboards for this method.

To insulate your floors, just follow these easy steps to keep your house warm and toasty.

1. Before you start installing the insulation, make sure you have the insulation the right way. In heating climates, the vapor retarder side of your insulation should always be toward the inside or warmer side of your home. In this instance, it will be installed closest to the floor.

2. Make sure that your insulation is installed so that it fills all the space between your beams and the band joist. Some areas may require you to cut the insulation to fill narrower spaces. Start with the areas where you can put in full insulation panels and then move onto the areas that need "custom made" insulation.

3. You will also need to cut your insulation to fit between any cross braces.

4. If you come across water pipes in your floors, you will need to insulate these as well. For electrical wiring and boxes, carefully insulate around them.

5. To help keep you insulation in place, put in nylon banding or metal insulation supports.

For more help insulating your floors, visit our floor forum