Help for Cold Floors and High Heating Costs

If your home has an unsealed crawl space, then very likely you experience cold floors during the winter months.

In the winter…

Do you hesitate in the morning to place your feet on the floor?

Are you always searching for your slippers?

Do your cold floors make your family uncomfortable and chilly?

Cold floors are not only uncomfortable, but they are also responsible for higher than necessary home heating costs!

Although your home may have fibreglass insulation in the floor above your crawl space, if you are still experiencing cold floors, consider the following:

• With an unsealed crawl space, including open vents, you are essentially attempting to heat the outside air!
• Fiberglass insulation is only effective when in a sealed environment. Air, including cold air, passes right through the loose quality of this insulant.
• Foil-faced fibreglass insulation requires airspace for the radiant barrier to work, and all-too-often it is installed directly against the floor sheathing without the necessary ½ inch space.
• Moisture is a common problem in unsealed crawl spaces and insulation that is damp loses even more of its insulating abilities.  

What is a permanent solution to cold floors and unnecessarily high energy costs?

Winterizing your crawl space! Here’s our process:

-Air seal and insulate the rim joist. A tremendous amount of heat is lost through the rim joist that rests on your crawl space foundation. We prevent frigid air from entering by sealing gaps in the perimeter of your foundation. Then we reduce conductive heat loss by insulating the rim joist with foam insulation.

- Insulate crawl space walls with rigid foam or spray foam. We install high-performance Polarfoam spray foam insulation on the crawl space walls. Polarfoam does what fibreglass cannot: it stops air leaks, never loses R-value, and can’t absorb or be damaged by moisture.

-Seal and insulate the crawl space floor. In our cold southwestern Ontario climate, we recommend installing TerraBlock™ foam insulation on the crawl space floor. This specialized flexible insulation is then covered with our durable poly CleanSpace® moisture barrier that completes the sealing process.

The winterized crawl space is now healthy, dry and insulated from the outside conditions… which means more comfort for your family and reduced heating costs.

We are the experts in “All Things Basementy” – including crawl spaces! We’d be pleased to offer you a free inspection and written estimate.