Hardwood will stay warmest in newer well insulated homes.
How to make concrete floors warmer.
Shown on the right are our unfinished subfloor tiles.
Take up as much flooring as you can without breaking it too much hence the extra flooring for oops.
A few are expensive or not practical.
The most common application however is an in floor heating system installed between the finished concrete slab and the flooring above.
Lay the barrier down first and tape the seams really well.
For example a bathroom on a slab would feature a layer of cork or synthetic cork underlayment on top of the concrete subfloor followed by the electric heating element and topped with the flooring substrate.
Get 2 boxes and a roll or two of vapor barrier.
Thermaldry flooring is also available in two tiled and two carpeted designs.
Luckily there are ways to combat this chilly predicament.
Get that amount of rigid board insulation.
Make sure to measure out the room you are doing to get the square footage.
In cases of a concrete slab in a basement for example this can be easily done without too much of an issue as demonstrated in the diagram below.
While choosing your vinyl flooring prefer the thicker variety to provide softer and warmer feel under your foot.
Our thermaldry floor tiles rest in raised plastic pegs on the floors of your basement creating a thermal break on your floor that makes its surface 8 10 degrees warmer than the cold concrete below.
If your home is drafty the cool air will make your hardwood floor cold as well.
Keep cold air out warm air in.
This allows the new floor to not come in direct contact with the old subfloor which can give you a warmer floor.
Transform your old floors for a cushiony delight by merely placing an area rug on the cold floor.
You can expect the stone floor of your screen porch or the basement linoleum laid on cement to be cold and carpet is the logical warmer.
On a cold winter s morning the air temperature up close to the edge of the concrete floor can be colder than the ground underneath the house.
Below the surface will be a bit warmer than this.
Some issues are structural and logical.
Floors of ceramic stone or concrete are the worst culprits with hardwood a runner up.
And the ground underneath your house will be warmer still because there s a relatively warmer house sitting on top of it.
Cold concrete floors are a rather common problem and there are several approaches to warming them up.
Determining the cause of cold floors however is usually fairly simple and can be addressed without massive expenditure.
Hardwood isn t quite as warm as carpet or cork but it s still one of the warmer flooring surfaces on the market.