I earlier asked about insulating under an older Heights pier and beam home. I definitely agree one wants to avoid mildew or dry rot problems and allow the crawl space to breath. BUT a real concern is during the winter there are several weeks of cold weather ( less than 30 F). My house furnace can only warm the house for a delta temperature (the difference of the interior verses the outside temperature) of about 30 degrees. Meaning: As the temperature outside is 30 F, the inside of my house is 60 F. As the temperature goes lower than 30 F outside, the temperature inside follows proportionately (less than 60 F). Furthermore, during the summer, when one sits next to the crawl space, they can feel the blown cold a/c air from the house interior passing through the leaking tongue and grove pine floor into the crawl space. So bottom-line there must be something that can be done to stop air movement (winter and summer) through the tongue-groove floor without causing mildew, and dry rot.
Scott
Tom’s Answer:
Tom: No need to have none of the above but if you really are going to be that particular and that adamant in this part of the country, then install at a great cost a radiant floor heating system and let it heat the floor. It will not rot.
Charlie: On a tongue-and-groove wood floor?
Tom: You bet. They do it up north all the time. It’s a fantastic heat. It keeps the wood dry and constant so it doesn’t buckle, doesn’t get wet. It stays pretty constant on there. Your toes are always toasty. You can walk around just in all your glory with no clothes on all you want. You can just sit your tush down on there and feel fantastic. I’m telling you, you can lay there like a starfish.
Charlie: I feel like I’m on the.
Tom: Quite frankly, I like a slipper myself but you’re talking about a lot of money. That’s nothing that fits that whole set of goods. People will try to sell it to him. He will buy it and he be disappointed in one of those points.
Charlie: Why?
Tom: Because he’ll either have wood rot. He’ll have very efficient floor that was rotting, I guess you might say. He could have a floor that doesn’t work and so he spent all this money and he’s still cold on his feet because he’s sensitive to his feet and still needs his slippers.
Charlie: Just putting fiberglass batts underneath isn’t there won’t do it?
Tom: It’ll do a little bit.
Charlie: Okay.
Tom:But it’s still going to be cold. If we get really cold weather, if you put enough fiberglass under there for those three or four days every four years it happens, then I mean, you know we’re not in Alaska. We’re not in Canada.
Charlie: Are you being?
Tom: It’ll be more comfortable.
Charlie: Are you being tongue-in-cheek about doing the radiant floor system, the radiant heating on the floor?
Tom: No, in fact my last homes I was actively building, people were very adamant about this. I told them point blank, especially in bathrooms, in steam shower areas, we did some pretty elaborate stuff in their bedrooms. We put in radiant floor systems in there and they loved it. It was always warm and toasty and they never complained. It is hitting the market for people who are very sensitive.
Charlie: All right, Scott, there you go. That’ll do it.
Tom: Just because my presentation.
Charlie: Sometime.
Tom: You know where I would recommended it where people really get uncomfortable is in a bathroom. You come out of the shower, you know, obviously you’re not clothed, you don’t have shoes on. So master bathrooms, very common now to put it under the tile. It’s nice and toasty. A lot of hotels up north have it. You can put it in your master bedroom and just hear your room when you’re sleeping. The rest of the house can be forced furnace heated which is very uncomfortable for a lot of people because a furnace down here is way oversized and it just makes it really hot and then it’s cold and then it’s really hot and then it’s cold, so it’s not a comfortable heat.
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