[Greenbuilding] building floor on top of rigid foam... (basement/garage retrofit)

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On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 12:53 PM, sat jiwan ikle-khalsa <
satjiwan_khalsa at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  anyone have experience or thoughts on this?  (thought it might apply to
> retrofitting basements without slab insulation as well - provided sufficient
> head height.)
>
> a client wants to energy efficiently convert an attached garage made into a
> living space.
> and at the same time raise the floor up to be level with the adjacent room.
> there's no insulation under the slab. so what's a good floor assembly to get
> height and insulation. and in this case no need for bearing a lot of load.
>
> we're aiming for about R20 floor insulation (rough passiv haus goal for our
> region - Mid Atlantic USA).  we're thinking to put 2 layers or two inch
> rigid foam on top of the existing slab then build a floor with 2x framing
> members sufficient to bring the height up so 3/4" plywood and carpet on top
> will meet the other room's height.
>
> i know XPS is rated for under slab applications.  would the somewhat more
> point(linear) load of 2x material be a problem resting on the rigid foam?
> (note there's no walls planned on top of this floor and no other bearing
> weight than the floor and furniture.
>
> would Roxul rigid foam work? is it specified for load applications?
>
>
> alternatively:
>
> a. lay down vapor barrier on slab, build appropriate height flooring and
> before applying plywood, fill joist bays with some kind of batt
> (roxul/denim) or loose fill (cellulose) material. there's plenty of room to
> get R20, but will loose thermal break with wood right on slab.
>
> b. (crazy??)  build up more layers of foam insulation (6-8" total) - then
> lay plywood on top.  (a floating floor).  this seems a little loose to me,
> especially since you'd want to leave some gaps in plywood joints and edges
> of room to accommodate expansion.  (would using two (thinner?) layers of
> plywood, laid opposite directions and screwed to each other secure it
> enough??)
>
> c. any other brilliant strategies?
>
> -satjiwan
>
>
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