Insulating a Floor with Spray Foam

The owners of this home wanted their floors to be warmer. The house was built on a 3-ft-high crawl space that was later dug and transformed into a shallow, unconditioned basement.

The room above this shallow basement was very cold and drafty during the winter time. Dr. Energy Saver concluded that insulating the floor above the basement would be the best approach for this particular home. Thus leaving the basement unconditioned, rather than conditioning the whole space and including it into the internal building envelope. Spray foam was applied between the floor joists. Spray foam insulation expands as it is applied, filling every gap around joints, plumbing, wiring, ducts and fixtures. Spray foam not only insulates but air seals the floor as well.

If your home sits on a vented, unconditioned crawl space or basement, your home is wasting a lot of energy. Cold floors, drafty rooms and high energy bills are some of the symptoms of energy loss through the crawl space and basement. Call Dr. Energy Saver for a free foundation insulation estimate and see just how much you can save!

Read Full Video Transcript Below:

Insulating a Floor with Spray Foam Dr. Energy Saver "On the Job Video Series" Larry Janesky: Hey, I'm Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver. The owner of this seaside home wanted to make their floors warmer in the winter time and they had a basement here that was crawl space. It was just stone walls 3 feet high and they dug that down to make a shallow basement. You can see the head room is still only 6 feet. They don't want to finish the basement or anything but the basement was cold. They called us to solve this problem for them and what we decided to do was spray foam the basement ceiling and leave this basement as unconditioned space. We considered other options in making the basement a conditioned space, but with the crawl space and the various detail to the walls by the time we could insulate the walls and so forth we decided to just make the air boundary and thermal boundary on the bottom of the house to basement ceiling. Open-celled spray foam is just the ticket. All right, we are all done and this foam will now isolate the upstairs from the basement and provide a beautiful thermal boundary between the basement and the house, making the floors upstairs much warmer, saving that homeowner money on fuel bills and making the house much more comfortable. If you have a house that you would like to make more comfortable if you would like to lower your energy bills call Dr. Energy Saver, we would love to help you. Contact Dr. Energy Saver for a home energy evaluation and written estimate.