The problem of maintaining heat in a house can be solved by laying traditional thermal insulation, for example, mineral wool, expanded polystyrene or foam. They have excellent insulating characteristics, but at the same time they have to put up with serious disadvantages, such as heavy dusting and the release of unsafe styrene or toluene vapors. As an option, you can insulate the floor with isolon; the material is quite new, but has already proven itself as a leader, without bad habits.
Izolon can be laid on both wooden and concrete floors
Types of isolon for thermal insulation of floors
There is nothing new in the technology of insulation with isolon. The material has been produced for quite a long time, so insulating the floor in a private house with isolon could have been done a decade and a half ago. Another thing is that insulation was used on a large scale mainly in industrial equipment, and only recently attracted everyone’s attention with its rather interesting characteristics.
The material is polyolefin foam with an additional reflective coating of aluminum foil. Due to this, it is easily recognizable by its characteristic surface pattern.
In order to get the desired effect from the installed thermal insulation, you need to imagine what kind of isolon structure is suitable for the floor in a wooden house as insulation.
The industry produces isolon with different structures:
- The classic version of foamed polyethylene filled with a pore-forming gas agent, this includes Izolon 100 and its foreign analogues;
- Foamed polyethylene, reinforced with catalyst additive. As a result, chemical bonds appear between individual pores—cells—that improve the durability and strength of the insulation. A typical representative is Izolon 300;
- Heavy and dense PET, which has undergone special treatment by sintering at elevated temperatures and irradiation. As a result, cells are crosslinked at the physical level, without the participation of reagents. The most striking representative of this type is Izolon 500.
Important! The greater the depth of additional processing of polyethylene foam, the higher its strength, the greater the number of air cells, and, accordingly, the lower the thermal conductivity coefficient.
Brands with a soft and viscous structure perfectly absorb noise and vibrations; Izolon 100 is suitable for soundproofing the floors and walls of a building. The more internal connections between the cells, the harder the material is, and the worse the sound insulation of the floor based on isolon works.
Izolon 300
In addition, thermal insulation based on foamed polyethylene is available with one-sided foil, with double-sided foil and also with a self-adhesive base on one side.
Izolon 300
This type of thermal insulation can be considered as a universal material, equally suitable for noise control and floor insulation. The three hundredth Izolon has good noise-absorbing characteristics, within 22-25 dB. The material is able to withstand prolonged heating and constant alternating load.
Laying isolon 300 on the floor guarantees effective protection against any vibrational low- and high-frequency noise and sounds. Isolon is especially good as insulation and sound insulation on concrete floor slabs. Available in rolls, in the form of a sheet with a thickness of 5 to 10 mm.
Material marking uses a numerical index, a sequence of four digits. The first two indicate the foaming ratio of the material, usually it is 30, which means an increase in the volume of polyethylene during processing by 30 times. The second pair of numbers indicates the thickness in millimeters.
Important! A good argument for using Izolon 300 as floor insulation in a wooden house is the fact that three hundredth polyethylene foam is the main material for heat and sound insulation of modern car bodies.
The cost of insulation directly depends on its thickness, on average the price is 1-3 dollars per meter.
Izolon 500
One of the most common and widely used insulation options for walls and floors of wooden houses, stone and brick buildings. In a situation where complete floor insulation is required, “Izolon 500” is subjected to special thermal and radiation treatment, as a result of which the insulation surface is quite rigid and durable.
Material characteristics:
- The compressive strength is 0.036 MPa, which means that you can walk on the insulation laid on the floor as if you were walking on EPS. Unlike penoplex, isolon retains fairly high elasticity and the ability to stretch without destruction by 130-180%;
- The thermal conductivity coefficient is only slightly higher than expanded polystyrene and mineral wool. It is 0.031 W/m*K versus 0.028 W/m*K for competitors;
- Izolon's flammability class is at the G2-G4 level.
Izolon 500 is somewhat inferior in noise insulation and sound absorption efficiency to its closest relatives. This figure is 20 dB versus 22 dB for the 300th brand and 26 dB for the 100th.
For wooden floors, insulation with a self-adhesive layer is best suited
The material is produced in the form of sheets with a thickness of 20 mm to 100 mm. Polyethylene foam can be easily cut and cut into any configuration for installation both on the screed and between load-bearing floor joists. The cost of Izolon 500 is 40% higher than that of the three hundredth brand.
The presence of full aluminum foil instead of a metallized lavsan coating, like penofol or polyisol, guarantees high thermal resistance when heated and at the same time provides almost complete, at the level of 97%, reflection of radiant heat.
What to choose for a specific situation
There is no universal recipe for using isolon. For example, for laminate flooring, it is recommended to use a 25 mm thick sheet for insulation and sound insulation. If the room is heated with infrared heaters, then insulation with a foil screen can be installed.
For interfloor ceilings, especially in modern houses where the floors are made of concrete slabs, it is recommended to use dense isolon 500 with a thickness of 8-10 mm. If you plan to install a heated floor in the room, then it is best to use double-sided foil-coated insulation material up to 10 mm thick.
Isolon may be inferior to mineral wool in terms of insulation efficiency, but there will definitely be no problems with it due to water, condensation or pathogenic microflora
A similar material can be used under classic concrete pouring or in a dry backfill screed. For insulation along joists or in two-layer versions using mineral wool, Izolon with a thickness of 20 mm and above is used.
Coating features
The variety of types of linoleum allows you to choose it to suit any style of your interior. The difference lies in the properties of the material and its thickness. There are three types of linoleum:
There are also cork, liquid and 3D linoleum. There are types that have antistatic or fire-fighting properties, as well as an insulated version. It already has at its base a material that serves as a backing made of fiber or jute on a natural basis or made of synthetic polyester.
When building a room from scratch, the choice of flooring is made in advance. In a private house, the floor is usually warm, smooth and reliable, so any linoleum is chosen, and no underlay is needed here. It is also not necessary if they want to lay linoleum on top of an existing one, if the latter is in good condition. But when the floor is subject to repair or the task of sound and heat insulation is set, the underlay will help solve these problems. As a rule, this is required in post-war houses with wooden floors, barrack-type houses, Khrushchev-era buildings and private buildings.
For soundproofing
For sound insulation, you can choose a cork backing. This is perhaps the most versatile option, although expensive. The environmentally friendly backing, pressed from tree bark, gives softness, but when exposed to mechanical loads it deforms, leaving dents. Therefore it should be more dense. You can place it in a room where bulky and heavy furniture is not used. The option with a combined substrate will also reduce the amount of transmitted noise. It consists of wool, flax and jute. It is dense and rigid enough for a coating such as linoleum, and therefore fits very well under it.
The foam version can also be used; it is less environmentally friendly, but much cheaper than the others. It is produced from porous polymers, the basis of which is isolon, or penoizol. In addition, a thicker version of the backing for soft linoleum will not work, it will tear. With frequent walking, its pores stick together and over time, “paths” are formed in those places where linoleum is most often stepped on. To get rid of these troubles, a thin layer of plywood or fiberboard is nailed or screwed on top of the substrate.
Rolled substrates are fastened together using tape or a mounting stapler.
For insulation
In addition to sound insulation, floor insulation is often required. It should be noted that the wooden floor itself is warm. But there are objects located above the arch of the building, on the ground floor, with a damp basement, or simply in the joints of external slabs or brickwork there are fistulas.
In these cases, there is always a draft under the floor. In addition to cork and combined substrates, which are also heat insulators, they use material made from flax fibers, which is rolled on special machines under high temperatures. This option protects the surface from drafts and also provides ventilation between the base of the floor and the linoleum, which prevents the accumulation of moisture inside.
The jute backing does not get wet, but absorbs moisture into itself, gradually getting rid of it. These options are impregnated with a fire retardant, which prevents the wood from rotting and protects against fungus. The foam material insulates the floor well and protects the space from drafts. But you need to take into account that over time it wears out. In addition, it does not allow moisture to pass through. In combination with waterproof linoleum, accidental water ingress into the joint does not bode well.
Which side should I place the isolon on the floor?
Experts advise in any case to carry out insulation with the foil surface directed towards the inside of the room. In this way, it is possible to block the leakage of radiant heat and at the same time strengthen the vapor barrier of the floor.
An exception may be a scheme with two-layer insulation of plank floors on wooden logs, provided that water heating is used in the house. For example, when laying the bottom layer of mineral wool, you can lay foil-coated polyethylene foam with aluminum foil to the mineral wool. This is done in order to block the seepage of supercooled water vapor through the layer of polyethylene foam insulation. The foil perfectly traps vapors, prevents moisture from condensing and forces it to escape through the air gap between the isolon and the mineral wool.
Let's sum it up
Insulating the floor of a log house is a very responsible job. The comfort of living in the house will depend on how correctly and efficiently it is done, so it is best to entrust it to specialists.
will help make your home warm and cozy. We have been providing finishing and insulation services for wooden houses for more than ten years and have accumulated vast experience in this area, which we want to share with you. We will be happy to provide our services to residents of Moscow and the region. Leave your requests, and we will send a specialist to you for free to inspect and draw up a preliminary estimate of the work.
On the Contact page you will find detailed information on how to contact us.
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How to attach isolon to the floor
It is clear that the method of fixing the insulation depends on the nature of the base. Foamed polyethylene, even with great thickness, remains a plastic material. Therefore, it is impossible to lay Izolon on the floor using point fastening with self-tapping screws or metal brackets. Under load, isolon can break at the fastening points.
It is best to lay the insulation on an adhesive basis, and the glue should not dry out. These can be viscous oil mixtures, silicones, but it is best to use self-adhesive polyethylene foam or double-sided construction tape with a metallized surface.
What is foil insulation?
The reflective layer can be found on one or both sides
This is a combined material that consists of a layer of aluminum foil or metallized film connected to a thermal insulation material. The reflective layer can be one-sided or two-sided. It is easy and quick to install due to its elasticity. Thinner than other thermal insulation materials.
Aluminum coating has maximum heat reflection properties, but is destroyed by alkalis in concrete. The metallized coating is resistant to alkaline influences. Spraying practically does not perform its function.
In addition to preserving heat, it can be used as waterproofing, as it does not allow moisture to pass through. The thinner the foil layer, the better it transmits heat through itself.
How to attach isolon to a wooden floor
A slightly different scheme is used when laying the panel on a wooden base. If you need to insulate a plywood floor, it is best to lay insulation without fixing it to the base. Only the joints between sheets or panels are sealed. This method is recommended for a wooden base under flooring in the form of linoleum or laminate.
When laying isolon on joists, fixation is performed using staples, glue and wooden slats.
Preparing the base
Unlike penoplex, polystyrene foam and even mineral wool, Izolon is quite sensitive to mechanical load, so the material can only be laid on a flat horizontal surface. Especially if the flooring is supposed to be laminate or, even worse, linoleum. In this case, the height difference in a one-meter area should not exceed 2-3 mm, and in principle there should be no bumps and depressions.
The concrete floor must be cleaned of loose “cakes”, dust and dirt must be removed. We carefully knock down the cones with a hammer and chisel, and clean off the remains with a grinder. Any depressions must be filled and smoothed to floor level. Next, it is advisable to wash the concrete and cover the floor with a primer. Not with paint, not with varnish, but with a primer for concrete.
Important! Additional treatment does not affect the insulation of concrete with isolon, but the concrete surface, even if covered with thermal insulation, will mercilessly collect dust. This is especially true for thin screeds.
When people walk on the floor, the Izospan cloth will work like an air pump, and all the dust will slowly move from the surface to the walls, and then get inside the room through the baseboards.
Completely worn-out floors need to be overhauled before insulation; a new screed may have to be made. It is impossible to lay Izolon on a surface full of cavities and cracks; under load, the glued panel will separate into separate sheets or strips.
If you plan to insulate the floor with isolon in a wooden house, then first you will need to remove the old floor covering, clean or sand off the paint, and treat the wood with a bioprotective solution. The floorboards are wedged together with wooden inserts, but the cracks cannot be completely sealed, otherwise the floor will rot under the insulation. After sanding, they can be selectively blown out with foam.
Plywood floors are prepared in the same way as concrete floors, you just need to additionally check that all the sheets lie on the base without “popping” or “bubbles”. Holes are drilled in problem areas, foam is blown in and immediately loaded with pressure weighing at least 10 kg.
How to properly lay foil-coated isolon on a concrete floor under linoleum
Oddly enough, many problems arise with the alignment of the panel. Izolon is usually purchased and stored in rolls; when it comes to laying insulation, the sheet unrolled on the floor acquires a wavy surface. You shouldn’t even try to stick such a “wave” evenly; the isolon will need to be laid out on the back side on the floor, slightly stretched and pressed along the edges with a light weight. After a couple of days, the isolon will become almost flat.
Next, we install the insulation according to the following scheme:
- We lay a waterproofing film on the floor. The procedure is mandatory for basement rooms and rooms on the first floor. For apartments, waterproofing on concrete floors can be omitted and replaced with a primer;
- Using a tape measure, measure the distance between the opposite walls of the room and cut off the Izolon strip with a margin of 10-15 mm. Knowing the width of the insulation roll and the dimensions of the room, we cut the required number of strips. Each time before cutting a new panel, we measure the length along the floor from wall to wall;
- We lay insulation on the floor along the starting wall. We are trying to adjust it so that the side edge of the canvas fits as tightly as possible to the wall. We lay the rest on the floor end to end, but without gluing with tape. Typically, one of the Isolon strips will have to be cut to fit into the overall width of the room;
- Place double-sided tape on the floor along the wall and lay the first strip of insulation on it. After leveling, we attach the remaining edges of the panel to the floor in a similar way. We add the remaining strips of Izolon to those already laid and connect them with tape;
- We lay fiberboard sheets on top of the insulation.
Due to the low strength of Izolon, you should not walk on the insulation; even without shoes you can easily damage the material. Therefore, when carrying out insulation work, it is necessary to use several small sheets of fiberboard, on which they move around the room.
Next, we lay the wood-fiber board, and glue the sheets together at the joints with mounting tape. It is impossible to glue fiberboard directly onto Izolon or lay linoleum on insulation without an intermediate layer. If the thermal insulation thickness is more than 8 mm, then plywood will have to be used instead of fiberboard.
Subtleties of styling
For this purpose, special polymer mixtures with reinforcing optical fiber are used as a substrate. This method is used when it is necessary to save more space in the room. The solution can be applied in several layers, using a special impregnation before each layer. Do not use mixtures based on gypsum or cement. Due to the properties of wood, changing its density under the influence of external factors will not result. If the floor has minor defects, it is enough to use a foam backing. This is the fastest, cheapest and easiest method.
A slightly more labor-intensive and inexpensive method is to nail down fiberboard sheets. You can level the base with plywood, chipboard or OSB boards of the third or fourth category. It must be taken into account that when wet and then dry, chipboard and fiberboard change their shape, which is not restored. Therefore, they are used in dry rooms where there is no running water.
How to lay isolon under OSB, plywood on a wooden floor
Thermal insulation procedures for plank and plywood floors are slightly different; in the first case, you will have to do thorough preparation to avoid damage to wooden parts, joists and supports. Thermal insulation of a plywood floor is somewhat simpler, but this reduces the height of the ceilings of the room.
We insulate the plank floor
The first step is to remove the floorboards. The boards are carefully unfastened, inspected, rejected or repaired.
Floorboards need to be removed
Only the joists will remain on the floor. If the beams are simply laid on a concrete base, then the procedure for laying Izolon is significantly simplified.
You will only need to lay insulation in the space between the beams. If the logs of the plank floor are raised above the ground on supports, then before laying the insulation, the beams will need to be hemmed with a plank on the cranial blocks, otherwise there will be nowhere to put the thermal insulation.
The general insulation scheme is as follows:
- We remove dust and dirt with a vacuum cleaner, treat the beams with an antiseptic impregnating solution and dry for at least two days;
- We cut Izolon sheets individually, according to the measured distance between the beams;
- If there is additional insulation with mineral wool under the Izolon layer, then first we lay a vapor barrier, then mineral wool, and only then sheets of polyethylene foam and always with staggered seams.
Izospan V or Izolon 100, 2-3 mm thick, can be laid on top of the beams. In both cases, the material is secured with a stapler and glued with tape. The thickness of the main insulating layer must be at least 50 mm.
Laying thermal insulation on a plywood base
First of all, you need to lay a beam on the plywood; it will act as a load-bearing frame that absorbs loads and protects the insulation from loads. The bars can be attached to plywood sheets with self-tapping screws using a vapor barrier film or without it, if the wooden base has been pre-treated with varnish.
The next stage is to lay Izolon between the bars. It is best to use sheets 20 mm thick; the thermal insulation is pushed between wooden guides and connected with tape.
A vapor barrier needs to be laid on top of Izolon. This solution reduces moisture absorption and deformation of the timber in the autumn-winter period. You can sew plywood or OSB on top.
How to lay Isolon under a floor screed
Very often, tiles, ceramics or any other floor coverings that require a sufficiently strong and rigid supporting surface are laid on an insulated concrete base. Isolon is an excellent type of insulation, but it is not strong enough, so it will need to be hidden under a screed.
Installation of thermal insulation under a concrete screed is carried out in the following way:
- We lay a waterproofing membrane on the subfloor, be sure to overlap the edges onto the walls to a height of at least 20 mm at the level of the final floor covering;
- We glue the joints between individual pieces of waterproofing twice, the first time with tape during installation, the second time with a primer, before laying the Isolon-based insulation;
- We roll out the roll into sheets and immediately lay the insulation on top of the waterproofing. Moreover, we change the laying direction to 90°. The edges of thermal insulation must also be laid on the walls with an allowance;
- Next, we install the reinforcing mesh; it will need to be raised on chips above the surface of the foil Izolon to a height of at least 20 mm;
- We install beacon chips on the insulation and fill the screed with a cement-sand mixture. The thickness of the screed must be at least 40 mm for insulation up to 10 mm thick. With a larger layer of thermal insulation, the layer is increased to 50 mm;
- After 4-5 hours, the chips are pulled out and the holes in the concrete are sealed.
The edge allowance for waterproofing and insulation is trimmed and fixed with a stapler. The gap is filled with foam and carefully trimmed. All that remains is to glue the tiles and nail the baseboards.
Warm floor on isolon, dry-laid under laminate
How to put isolon under an electric heated floor
The first thing you will need to do is lay out the base for laying the thermal insulation. The subfloor can be poured in the form of a screed or assembled from a moisture-resistant plasterboard sheet. In any case, the surface should be as smooth and flat as possible.
Installation of isolon is carried out in the following order:
- We treat the base with a primer;
- We lay Izolon 100 without foil on the floor, carefully glue the joints, the edges should be laid on the walls with an allowance of 30 mm;
- The next layer is made of foil Isolon 500, it is best to lay two layers 10 mm thick with seams spaced apart;
- The sheets are laid out on the floor with the foil facing up and also taped with metallized tape;
- Depending on the design of the heated floor, it will be necessary to install fastenings for heating pipes or cables on the insulation surface. In this case, the floor is covered with screed under the tiles.
For wooden floors, before laying the heating elements, support bars are laid, and only after that the cable or plastic pipes for the coolant are installed. All that remains is to connect the heating, check and cover the floor with a tongue and groove board.
Recommendations and common mistakes
The first mistake appears due to the desire to save. Insulation based on Izolon is quite expensive, so even pieces and small pieces are used. In practice, this means the appearance of a large number of cold bridges at the joints. Pasted tape provides only a mechanical connection; it will not protect against heat loss. Therefore, insulation must be laid with a minimum number of panels.
The second mistake is related to the refusal to use vapor barrier and waterproofing. Membranes must be used without fail; Izolon is capable of absorbing moisture up to 0.01%. This is not much, but it is enough to lead to a sharp increase in the thermal conductivity of the material upon contact with water.
Properties
The materials used in production are most often environmentally friendly, safe for health and the environment.
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Advantages:
- light weight;
- durability;
- resistance to loads;
- protection against moisture penetration;
- high rates of heat saving and sound insulation;
- resistance to temperature changes;
- ease of installation;
- high reflective properties.
Such insulation can be used in any premises. In addition to the described qualities, it is capable of reflecting radiation.
