It is known that owners of wooden houses spend much less money and energy to warm a building for the winter than owners, for example, frame-monolithic or brick houses, because a tree is a material of low thermal conductivity (i.e. it does not release heat from the room). In such houses, mainly iron, concrete and stone elements are insulated. And here the key role is played by high-quality insulation of the foundation.
Materials and their properties
How to insulate the foundation so that in winter you do not have to freeze? To do this, you need to choose the right material. The optimal insulation for the base should have the following qualities:
- strength (to withstand high soil pressure, the insulation must have a small degree of deformation under compression);
- the insulation must retain heat, i.e. it should have a small degree of thermal conductivity;
- low level of hygroscopicity (otherwise the water entering the heater, freezing in winter, will increase significantly in volume and deform the material).
Insulation of the foundation outside can be carried out with the following materials:
- polystyrene foam;
- polyurethane foam;
- extruded polystyrene foam.
All of the above types of insulation have high strength and durability, in addition, they are not hygroscopic and have low thermal conductivity.
It is not recommended to use mineral wool and plain polystyrene as a insulation for the base and blind areas, because they are highly hygroscopic, and therefore subject to seasonal deformations, especially in winter.
The main methods of insulation
Foundation insulation is carried out in two ways:
- the first method is to lay the insulation directly at the construction stage, before pouring the foundation;
- the second method involves the insulation of the blind area and the foundation of the finished house.
The procedure itself is not cheap and rather complicated, which is why some homeowners refuse it during construction. However, to refuse to warm the house, the foundation and blind area of which directly contacts the soil is irrational. Indeed, in the winter it will surely freeze, cooling the entire space of the house. Moreover, the warming of the foundation of the finished building is both more expensive and much more complicated (you have to dig the base from all sides and re-make the bridge).
Features of thermal insulation polystyrene foam
Insulation of the base with polystyrene foam has many advantages:
- the material is not hygroscopic;
- polystyrene foam has no expiration date;
- cheap price;
- It has excellent hydro and thermal insulation properties.
Before warming the foundation of the house, you need to carry out the whole complex of preliminary measures:
- first you need to remove all soil above the level of freezing;
- it is necessary to clean the base of the remnants of land and garbage;
- Now you can start waterproofing (bitumen in rolls or liquid rubber).
The procedure for waterproofing the base is as follows:
- base concrete slabs and basement are primed with a special mortar (the mortar can be purchased at the store or prepared with your own hands, mixing melted bitumen and diesel fuel in a 1: 1 ratio);
- after the primer dries, waterproofing material can be applied;
- if you have liquid rubber in store for these purposes, just mix it and apply to the base with a spatula;
- If you decide to use rolled material as a waterproofing, then before fastening it will have to be measured, cut vertically, rolled up and started to be attached to the base plates, while heating the rolled edge with a burner.
The insulation is fixed after the waterproofing cools down and fixes slightly. The installation of expanded polystyrene on the rolled material is carried out using the same burner, which is used to heat some points and tiles and then they are pressed in these places. If the sticking of the material is done on liquid rubber, it is better to use special mastic for fixing.
The final stage of work on polystyrene foam insulation is backfilling of the base and the device in the blind area of an additional roofing layer.
The use of polyurethane foam
To insulate the foundation of the house outside or inside, you can use polyurethane foam.
Polyurethane foam has many positive qualities, the main of which are:
- the method of its application is spraying, during which the material fills the most microscopic cracks and joints (layer thickness is about 5 cm);
- high adhesion, which allows it to perfectly adhere to any surface material.
The material is blown directly onto the concrete slabs of the base, after which waterproofing is laid on it and the base is backfilled with soil.
However, this procedure is quite expensive, requires knowledge of the technique of applying the material and special equipment. Therefore, with the help of polyurethane foam, warming the foundation with your own hands will not work.
Thermal insulation of the base of a wooden house
Warming the foundation in a private wooden house is a must if the base box is in direct contact with the ground.
Usually, a huge amount of free space remains inside the excavated pit. If this place is not planned for the basement, then it will be more rational to fill it with expanded clay or just ground to the very floor level.
Do-it-yourself warming of the foundation with the earth has both pros and cons. Undoubtedly, this is the cheapest, frankly speaking, free material, plus, it does not need to be extracted, because it remains in large quantities after digging a trench under the foundation. The negative side of this method of insulation is the complexity of the backfill procedure, because most of the land will have to be filled up manually, as well as a low degree of thermal insulation, which will be especially noticeable in cold winters.
An advantageous alternative to this method of warming is expanded clay backfill. Firstly, a little material is needed, because not all free space is covered with them, but only 50 centimeters of the inner walls of the foundation wasteland.
Secondly, the ability to make a basement and hide the elements and nodes of communications there. In addition, expanded clay can also make insulation of the blind area.
Expanded clay insulation consists of the following steps:
- digging trenches;
- installation around the perimeter of the walls of fixed formwork of slate, boards, etc .;
- laying waterproofing material inside the formwork and on the walls of the basement;
- expanded clay filling;
- expanded clay coating with a layer of roofing material, backfilling, arrangement of the blind area.
Is it worth it to warm the foundation from the inside?
Internal insulation of the foundation can be effective only if the basement of this house is well ventilated.
According to construction experts, the internal thermal insulation shifts the dew point; moreover, the insulation will create high humidity, which will soon lead to wetting, moldiness and destruction of the foundation and the blind area. Of course, good ventilation could prevent this, but this means high costs, several times higher than the cost of external insulation.
It is best to insulate the foundation of the house from the inside with liquid polyurethane foam - a material with maximum protection against moisture. It is necessary to spray it both on the floor and on the walls of the basement, and only a specialist can correctly perform the work.
So, neglect of the thermal insulation procedure of the foundation is fraught with grave consequences, the elimination of which often takes much more money than could be spent with timely work.
In no case can you save on the thermal insulation of the blind areas, foundation and basement for the winter, because its presence is the best savings. At the same time, insulation of the foundation from the outside during the construction of the house is more preferable.