We have laminate in the front room.

It's a suspended wooden floor with one layer of foam on the floor boards and then the laminate - but it's freezing in winter.

I can see 3 options:

1) Take up all the floor and re-lay using fibreboard on top of the foam.

2) Fill the gap in between the joists underneath the floor with rock wool or board type insulation.

3) Use my spare roll of foil backed bubble insulation stapled to the underside of the joists.

Any thoughts?

Pat...

I dont know the answer to your question , but I hope some one does as my floors are freezing in winter (and in summer this year ) and would love to do something about it .

Take up the floor and fit an underfloor heating system to replace the radiators in that room....

You can get some really good systems now that take 60 degree central heating water and mix it to 30 before sending it around the loops...

And the new systems cope pretty well with suspended floors too!

If you have good access to the underside of the floor I would fit kingspan 50 mil thick insulation boards cut to fit tightly between the joists.
The better the fit the warmer you will be.
Regards, Kipper.

Carpet ?.........


Or more seriously, kingspan or similar fitted in from underneath.
When doing new builds in the past when I were a lad and still on the tools, it was netlon laid over the joists which carried rockwool, but kingspan seems to be the way nowadays.

Rug?

It was for exactly this reason I'm not planning on going laminate in the lounge.

Done the solid wood thing in kitchen/dining room but like the carpet in the lounge....

Just on the subject of the foil backed insulation sheeting...
I take it there is a correct side up for that stuff?

s

as said before underfloor heating (its the future)

Underfloor heating would rasie the floor level and you'd have t "step up" into the room, unless you can fit it in between the joists under the floor?

The foil sheety thing is foil on each side.

Rockwool is a lot cheaper than Kingspan - perhaps polystrene???

Pat...

Kingspan in between the joists will work wonders.

Another vote for insulating the floor. On a bit of floor I've just re-done building control wanted 75mm polystyrene insulation.

Insulating underneath sounds like the best bet - but do you have easy access to under the floorboards, without lifting them?

If not, I'd swallow my designer pretentions and fit a carpet with good underlay.

I'm firmly in the underfloor heating camp (well I would be, I design the stuff ). We do a system which only raises the floor 18mm (Overlay). I would do the entire ground floor with it so no steps. It's sooooo much comfier than rads / cold floors.
If you can get under the floorboards, fitting Kingspan or similar will make a difference, but there ain't no substitute for warm floors

I allready have carpet , but with no underlay (it was here when I moved in)
Insulating between the joists would mean lifting a lot of 70 year old floorboards but its gonna have to done sometime.................