Cold Floors

[Jostan]

Hello,
This past Fall I purchased a slab home. I'm finding out now that during the winter months the floors are freezing. The whole house is carpeted and/or tiled and it still feels like I'm walking on cold cement. The carpet is older so I'm not sure if and when I replace the carpet and padding if it will make a difference or not. Any ideas?

[pgtek]

Hi
you have cold floor because cold air is heavier than hot air.
check if your waether stip on door and windows are seal tite.
Next check the fireplace. Mine was pushing cold air from the air intake from outside.If you have ceilling fans make sure there set for winter. meanning they turn opposite side from summer
You might try dehumidifier and see how it is.

cheers

pg

[awesomedell]

Also feel around the baseboards, if the builder didn't use a thin foam insulation between the sill plates on the exterior walls and the slab you'll get a significant amount of cold air coming in there. The retro fix is to carefully pull the baseboards off and run a bead of caulk along the bottom edge of the drywall on all exterior walls and then replace the baseboard. Definitely you should also follow pg's advise as well. If this is a newly built house, contact your builder. :coffee:

[mcfadden]

It sounds like the biggest problem is that the cold is coming up through the concrete slab. I have same problem with my basement floor. The solution may be one or both of the following. You can install a subfloor on to of the concrete. For this, I have been looking into a couple products, DRIcore and another called Subflor. The second solution is to install a low voltage radiant heating system like Zmesh or STEP Warmfloor. You can also do a combination of the two. The radiant heat solution can be costly but may be worth it in the long run.

Good luck.

[Tileguybob]

Step Warmfloor is a good one because it can be used under carpet and wood as well as ceramic tile. I am unaware of any other brands of electric mats that can do this. I have installed it under some of my tile jobs and it is probably the highest priced unit as well as the most complicated to wire but it works as advertised.