A suspended ground floor is one of the leading causes of heat loss within older homes. But there is a way to prevent energy loss and keep out the cold.
Suspended floor insulation can help to ensure a room retains heat and is energy efficient. Read on to find out all about our applications - and everything else you need to know.
A typical raised floor in most older buildings is made of timber, where more modern buildings would have a concrete floor design. With the floor raised above the ground surface, the crawl space left below often causes more energy loss than a modern building.
Suspended floor insulation is the answer. Installed in between the wooden beams or against the underside of a concrete floor over a crawlspace, it can reduce heat loss to almost zero and increase energy efficiency through innovative use of sustainable materials.
Costs and savings will vary depending on desired performance level. High thermal performance will cost more but the financial benefits over time will always outweigh the initial extra costs.
The main driver for installing suspended timber floor insulation will be to improve thermal performance.
To plan what thickness of insulation you’ll need for a suspended timber floor you must calculate its U-Value. In England and Wales building regulations suggest the floor should achieve a U-Value of 0.25 W/m2K or less, if possible. To define this, you’ll also need to work out the perimeter / area ratio. Better known as the P/A ratio, it’s the amount of the exposed perimeter divided by the floor area.
The higher the P/A ratio, the more insulation you’ll need. Our U-Value calculator will recommend the most suitable thickness of insulation for your project. Plus, it can be integrated into BIM, so you can centralise all material and design updates.
Source: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/home-insulation/floor
Older buildings use suspended timber floors to avoid decay over time, but this can lead to significant heat loss. ROCKWOOL insulation uses the power of stone to maximise a building’s energy efficiency and retain heat for the lifetime of a building.
Even with concrete ground floors, there’s still the need to reduce heat loss to ensure a building is energy efficient. Help your projects achieve these goals more easily with the simple installation of ROCKWOOL insulation.
Our stone wool traps heat and prevents cold air getting in from beneath the insulation, so warm air can circulate within the building. This helps to maintain temperatures throughout the building and to reduce energy bills.
ROCKWOOL suspended floor insulation products are also:
Non-combustible, our stone wool insulation achieves A1 or A2, s1-d0 fire classifications
Adaptable to changing design plans, and can be reused when a floor is modified
Sustainable and eco-friendly
Easy to install
Capable of absorbing noise and vibration
Cost-effective solutions for potentially expensive problems
When installing from above, suspended timber floor insulation can be placed on a suspended netting. Using the natural friction fitting of the lightweight slabs will ensure tight placement – avoiding air leaks.
When installing from below, insulation can be pushed against the existing floor boarding. Placing some lathing or netting underneath will help keep products in place.
With a concrete intermediate or separating floor, insulation slabs can be glued or mechanically fixed against the underside of the floor. For concrete ground floors Thermal ROCKFLOOR® can be laid below or above the concrete slab and is also suitable for suspended beam and block floors.
Key tips:
We’re passionate about creating products that improve energy efficiency.
We take stone, the most abundant natural resource on Earth, and upcycled secondary materials that would otherwise end up as waste and turn them into long lasting stone wool insulation products. These products are themselves recyclable and can be recycled again and again without any deterioration in quality.
We also use sustainable practices to produce our products, taking other industries’ waste instead of virgin raw materials, as well as our own. ROCKWOOL building insulation saves around 100 times more carbon in its lifespan than is produced during its manufacture and our insulation can be net carbon positive in less than 200 days.
To find out more, Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are available for all of the stone wool insulation products manufactured in the UK. To request an EPD for suspended ground floor insulation, please contact technical.solutions@rockwool.com.
Check the Energy Savings Trust website to see whether there are any financial support schemes available for suspended floor insulation.
