Under floor insulation makes a huge difference to the comfort of your home
in winter, and believe it or not in the summertime too. That insulating layer
keeps your expensive heating and cooling where you need it most. It keeps your
energy bills down, while you enjoy a home that's cozy in winter and a cool haven
in summer. I'm going to share with you today
ecoMasters unique installation technique, where the polyester is stapled
into place at ten centimeter intervals to ensure perfect coverage.
You'll need a small plastic tub, a headlamp, extension cords, a portable
residual-current device or RCD, enough tarps to run the full length of the space,
safety glasses, a dust mask, coveralls or clothing you don't mind getting dirty,
two or three electric staplers, and staples. If you allow about two hundred
per roll of insulation, that will be plenty. You don't need gloves because
this material is safe to touch. Step one is to prepare your equipment, Your
plastic tub goes underneath the floor with you. You'll need your safety gear,
your extension cords, your light, your staplers and staples. We recommend taking
a few staplers under the floor at a time, because that means if one becomes jammed
while you're working you can just reach for the other one
rather than crawling all the way out and all the way back again. It's important to
use electric staplers because they're double insulated, and you can't be
electrocuted if you staple a wire under the floor.
This is extremely important, as there is a very real risk of electrocution when
working around live wiring. So why leave the electricity connected? Leaving the
electricity connected means that if the power goes out, it's a signal that you've
hit a wire. If you leave the power off, you won't know if it happens. If you do
hit a wire, call an electrician. Do not attempt to fix it yourself. If you don't
have safety switch in your home don't worry, your portable RCD is effectively
an add-on safety switch that will switch off your electricity if there's any
fault of any kind. So since we're leaving the power on you can use the lights
fitted under your floor to help you see while you work. Step two is to prepare
your site. To keep your insulation as clean as possible while you work, lay out
your tarps under the floor starting closest to the doorway and
working your way in. Remember to overlap the tarps in such a way that the
insulation won't catch when dragging over the top. Take a moment to feel the
surface of your insulation. You'll find that one side is slightly more dense
than the other. This is the side facing outwards on the roll. This more dense
side will be the exposed side of the insulation when fitted so remember to
have it face down when taking it under floor. With your overalls and safety gear
on it's time to take your equipment tub and installation underfloor. Drag the
insulation over the tarp all the way to the furthest point with the dense side
facing down. You may need someone to unroll insulation for you at the door
and feed it in. Step 3, staple the insulation between the joists. At the
furthest point under your floor position yourself underneath the insulation
pulling the material up and over to fit it between the joists. Feed the insulation
under the bottom plate to ensure full coverage.
When you reach the bearer, measure and tear the insulation.
Polyester insulation tears in one direction. Make sure you tuck the insulation in so that it meets
the insulation on the other side.
Take your stapler and staple about every ten centimeters to the lower edge of the
joist. The staplers are more reliable with fewer jams when you put in only a
half a clip of staples at a time. Anytime that two pieces of insulation are
butted together, staple the ends of both pieces to the floor pulling the
bulk of it aside and stapling through about two or three centimeters of its
thickness. This ensures that the join does not sag nor leave space for rodents
to nest inside. We pull the insulation aside for two reasons, the first is that
the full thickness of the material is too thick to staple all the way through
and the second this would compress the insulation and thus reduce its
effectiveness. When you come to a section that has wiring on the side of the joist
you don't want to staple into the joist because you will risk stapling the wire.
You may choose to mark the wires with chalk before you begin installing.
So in this case we're going to staple into the floor. So pull aside the material and
staple through about two or three centimetres into the floor just as you
would when you're joining two pieces of material together. And don't worry when
you let go of it the material can sit safely against the wiring.
Sometimes, the joist width will be too wide or too narrow for the material to fit
comfortably into. In this case we're going to go sideways so turn the
material sideways, put it into the joist in one end, and measure along about a
joist width more than you need, and tear across the material. Friction fit it into
place and staple the sides as you would normally. Then, staple the butt join as
you would and two pieces are joined together.
And continue that process until you filled up the whole space. So there you
have it - a perfectly insulated under floor that will withstand the test of time
making your home much more comfortable to live in, cheaper to run, and better for
the environment too.