Insulation of the floor in the bath. Do-it-yourself floor insulation in the bath - which insulation to choose and how to lay How to insulate the floor in the sauna with your own hands

More recently, many did not know how to properly insulate the floor in the bath, so that the heat-insulating material does not rot, bacteria and fungus do not multiply under it. Therefore, they simply left gaps between the boards where water flowed. But the precious warmth quickly evaporated. Now people have learned how to make the right thermal insulation in conditions of high humidity.

Is it necessary to do this

Bath floors are constantly in unfavorable conditions: high humidity due to water ingress and temperature, especially in the steam room. This negatively affects the strength of the floor material. Such an environment is ideal for the development of fungus, mold and pathogenic bacteria. All this does not contribute to healing and relaxation, although bath procedures are intended for this. But the selection of the right raw materials and high-quality installation will help to avoid these troubles.

The combination of high room temperatures and cold floors can cause a person to fall ill. Yes, and the heat will be weathered much faster. This means that much more fuel is needed to maintain the desired temperature. And this does not save the budget.

Therefore, the floor covering in the bath must be insulated. And you will have to do this in all rooms: a steam room, a locker room, a rest room, a washing room.

Only “dry” wooden and concrete floors are insulated, i.e., the bases of which do not leak. The drains in them merge due to a slope of 10 degrees to the side where the gutter or a special hole is located. There is a water collector through which all this flows into a sewer or ditch. If this system is done correctly, the insulation will last a long time.

The choice of insulation for the sauna

The log structure is usually located on concrete slabs or logs. In both cases, thermal insulation is done, taking into account the features of the base. These data allow you to choose the right thermal insulation material.

Floor insulation with universal foamed polystyrene is allowed for both concrete and wood floors. This material does not absorb water. Its undoubted advantage is its low weight, due to which the total mass of the structure remains practically unchanged. Polystyrene is also easy to use. Styrofoam has similar properties.

The concrete base in the Russian bath is mainly insulated using mineral wool and glass wool. They do not tolerate moisture well, so they lose all their thermal insulation properties when wet. Expanded clay can also be used. Its technical characteristics are very similar to those of mineral wool, despite the different appearance. But he is not easy to work with. It is not easy to pour a layer of insulation while maintaining the required floor slope of 10 degrees. Therefore, it is mixed with a weak solution of cement.

Also, the floors are insulated with boiler slag, foam concrete, half-pan, foam plastic.

Use as thermal insulation and material such as perlite. It is mixed with water and cement mortar. When it completely hardens, it has a porous structure. Perlite is usually located between the top and bottom screeds of the concrete floor.

How to insulate the floor in a Russian bath from the inside with your own hands

The method of insulation depends on the insulation used and the material from which the floor is made in different sections of the sauna.

Use of perlite

Perlite is silty volcanic sand. With a light breath of wind, it scatters, so you can only work with it indoors without a draft. Before the process, tightly close all doors and windows. Insulation of the floor in the bath with perlite must be carried out even at the construction stage. Otherwise, you will have to dismantle the top screed of the concrete base.

All work on floor insulation in a washing room or steam room using perlite consists of several steps:

Pour the insulation into a deep container. Gently fill it with water in a ratio of 2 to 1. Wait for the mixture to sit down. Then mix well and gently.
Add here 0.5 parts of cement grade not lower than M300. Stir again.
Add another 0.5 parts of water to the resulting solution. Stir and pour the same amount of liquid again. Mix everything very well. The resulting solution should be dry and crumbly. It must be stirred until it becomes plastic.
After that, spread it evenly over the lower concrete screed with a layer of 100 mm. Then let the coating dry. This will take about 5-6 days.
Once everything has hardened, mount the leveling top concrete screed.

As a unit of measure, you can use a bucket, the volume of which will be equal to 1 part.

Insulation of the wooden floor in the steam room and washroom

Naturally, it is best to carry out thermal insulation work at the construction stage. But, if for some reason this did not happen, then you will have to dismantle the final floor covering.

Nail the cranial blocks along the entire length of the bottom edges of the beams on both sides.
Take the boards and cut them slightly smaller than the gaps between adjacent beams. Lay them on the cranial bars. Thus, you will form the first layer of the subfloor, on which you need to lay the waterproofing material. For a wooden floor, this is a must. Ideally, use a waterproofing membrane that will also prevent steam from penetrating. When laying it, cover all beams at the bottom of the floor with an overlap of 200 mm. Fastening is done using a construction stapler, and the joints are sealed with vapor barrier tape.
Lay a heater on the waterproofing, on which it is recommended to lay another layer of waterproofing material, for example, roofing material. Bituminous mastic is used to glue it at the seams.
Fill the space between the drain and the insulation with polyurethane foam.
At the last stage, lay the finishing floor, remove the protruding vapor barrier and nail the baseboards.

Leave a small gap of 300–400 mm under the finished floor for ventilation. So, the tree will constantly dry out.

Insulation of concrete floor with tiles

The waterproofing material is laid on the lower floor of concrete slabs on the subfloor layer. It is not necessary to use roll insulation. You can apply a coating of mastic in three layers. Both materials can be combined.

For a concrete base, mineral wool, extruded polystyrene foam or expanded clay can be used as a heater.

Special plastic or alabaster-cement supports are placed on the heat-insulating material. Reinforcing mesh is laid on them. Next, the upper floor screed is poured and finishing work is carried out.

Underfloor heating device

Underfloor heating is one of the most effective ways to insulate. This is achieved by using water, infrared or electric heating. Its installation takes place in several stages:

Cover the thermal insulation layer with a reinforced mesh, on which put special mats or an electric cable.
Lay them evenly so that the entire floor area is heated equally.
Mats are fixed with glue.
Finish the job by laying ceramic tiles.

The floor is heated by pipes filled with hot water. In this case, only high-quality metal-plastic, polyethylene or copper pipes can be used. It is mandatory to install temperature sensors, a thermostat and a pump. This greatly complicates the process of warming. In order for the water in the pipe system to be heated, they must be connected to a water heater, for example, an electric boiler.

Prepare the floor surface for installation work. It should not have chips, protrusions and cracks.
Lay insulating material.
Walk around the perimeter of the floor with a special tape. It will not allow the floor to deform under the influence of high temperature.
Lay the reinforcing network, and distribute pipes with liquid heat carrier along it. There must be a distance of 100 mm between the pipe and the wall. They must lie freely so that high temperatures do not deform them.
Connect the piping to the heating using inlet and outlet manifolds. Using a sleeve and a winding, fix well the places where the pipes are connected to each other.
Check how the system works at maximum water supply. Make sure there are no leaks anywhere.
If everything is in order, then you can lay a rough screed, on which, after hardening, a self-leveling mortar spreads.
At the last stage, cover the floor with an absorbent layer and a top coat.

Video: how to make a water-heated floor with your own hands

Requirements for the insulation of different sections of the bath

The end result largely depends on compliance with the requirements for flooring in different parts of the bath:

Thermal insulation of the bath floor, although a rather time-consuming process, is mandatory. Thanks to this, spending time in the sauna will be comfortable, and the heat will be used rationally.

One of the problems that can upset the owners of a brand new steam room may be the floor is too cold in the room. If they collected a bath box in the summer, they could also insulate the floor in the bath, as they say, according to the season or according to the standard adopted for ordinary housing on a light foundation. With the advent of winter, thermal insulation is clearly not enough, and in the steam room, not to mention the dressing room and dressing room, it becomes chilly even with a properly working stove.

Warming the bath floor with mineral wool will be the cheapest

Why is the floor in the bath cold

It is clear that the boards on the floor in the bathhouse should not be overheated, but it is even worse if at a height of 10-20 cm from the surface the air already seems cold, and even icy in severe frost.

There are few reasons for such cooling of the lower tier, mainly these are mistakes made when planning the design and power of floor insulation in the bath:

Alteration of the summer steam room - a temporary hut into a full-fledged bathhouse, without thermal insulation of the foundation and soil under the floor;
Incorrect position of the stove. If the distance from the boards or tiles to the stove blower is more than 25 cm, and plus everything, a screen is installed, then even the insulated floor in the bath will simply not have time to warm up in a few hours of visiting the steam room;
The erroneous device of the drain system, or worse, the equipment of the drainage pit under the bathhouse.

Important! The main reason is still the illiterate arrangement of thermal insulation. The method of warming the floors of the bath differs from the installation of warm walls and ceilings.

Another factor that prevents you from properly performing floor insulation in the bath with your own hands can be considered elementary illiteracy or the desire to save on building materials. For example, when planning floor insulation for different bath rooms, different materials and techniques are used. You can’t do everything one size fits all, if in the steam room it is necessary to lay reflective thermal insulation under the subfloor, then it is pointless to do this for a concrete base, just a waste of money. It will not be a mistake to make the floor as hot as in the steam room, but if it is the other way around, it will be impossible to heat the steam room even in 4-5 hours.

Insulation of the bath floor without vapor barrier is wasted effort and money

Cold floor in the bath: how to fix it

Even if the bath room has a weak and cold floor, no one will rebuild the building, and there is no particular need for this. But it is necessary to correct the insulation, waterproofing of the foundation and thermal insulation of the steam room, washing department and rest room.

Important! There are few options for keeping warm, but each of them requires a very careful, balanced approach. In addition to warming the bath floor, it is necessary to ensure normal ventilation of the space, otherwise the underground will not only be cold, but also wet due to condensation, and, as a result, infect the bath room with a sick atmosphere.

What can be done:

In the rest room and washing department of the bath, remove the floors, lay insulation and pour concrete screed. A clean floor is laid on top. Due to the air gap and the insulated concrete base, heat loss will decrease by 3-4 times;
For small steam rooms, the problem can be solved by laying a heat-insulating layer and changing the air movement pattern between the subfloor and front floor. A 10 kW stove of thermal power, with the correct arrangement of air channels, heats the floor in the dressing room and in the sink even faster than the walls;
Tiny bathhouses, with an area of 4-7 m 2, can simply be equipped with a “warm floor” water heating system. For most winter country steam rooms today this is the most optimal option for warming.

A hot water tank installed on the stove will provide not only floor heating, plus everything, it becomes possible to regulate the temperature depending on the weather and frost. And most importantly, upon completion of the bath procedures, the heat stored in the water container will be enough to dry the floor and drain even when the stove is extinguished.

You can heat the floor of the bath from the stove

Of course, all of the above activities make sense only with the correct primary insulation of all floor levels in the bath, otherwise the effect of heating the wooden base will be reduced to zero.

How not to do floor insulation

Separately, mention should be made of the methods by which it is impossible to insulate the base of the bath floor. First, you cannot rely only on the air gap between the wooden flooring from the boards and the ground. If the basement of the bathhouse is made without waterproofing, in other words, open ground or a dug hole for collecting water remains under the logs, then it will not be possible to insulate the floor. Humid air conducts heat very well, so the soil must be covered, an outlet sewer and an additional layer of heat-insulating material must be installed.

Insulation from cut foam packaging is unlikely to save the floor of the bath

Secondly, it is impossible to cover the outer parts of the foundation and walls with soil. Sometimes this is done to close the outer layer of insulation in the bases of residential buildings, but the earth embankment itself leads to the accumulation of water and rotting of the lower crowns of the walls. For a bath, it is more profitable to insulate the floor inside the room, rather than deal with general heat loss.

Thirdly, you can not use electric heaters, no matter if they are film or based on a high resistance cable. This is a direct violation of safety rules, and the effectiveness of such a warm floor in a bath room is low.

What insulation for the floor in the bath is better

Of the entire list of heaters used in domestic construction, only some of the most resistant to high temperature and humidity can be used to insulate the lower tier of the bath:

Extruded polystyrene foam or polystyrene;
Bulk insulation based on granulated perlite or expanded clay;
Multilayer polyethylene foam with a reflective aluminum layer;
Mineral wool.

In addition to standard ways to insulate the floor, there are many folk methods of keeping warm, most of them are still used in practice for small country steam rooms and padded jackets.

The floor can be insulated with standard foam and fiber materials

Important! Folk methods are quite laborious, require patience and good knowledge of the characteristics of the preparation of insulation, therefore, if there is no exact information about what and how to lay the material, then it is better to use more understandable traditional methods and heat insulators.

Bulk insulation

Many builders do not like floor insulation in the bath with expanded clay or perlite for one simple reason. The process itself turns out to be quite dirty and dusty; upon completion of the work, the walls and the wooden floor have to be washed and dusted for a long time. Perlite is especially "dusty" in nature, it has to be laid in the floor in the form of an additive 3: 1 to the cement mortar.

Perlite is not cheap, but the insulation from the granules is ideal

Expanded clay itself tolerates high temperatures well, therefore it retains its insulating qualities without degradation for decades. But burnt porous clay has one drawback - expanded clay, like a sponge, absorbs water vapor and odors.

If in the bath part of the moisture through cracks or through cracks in the logs gets into expanded clay, then the material will have to be changed, even prolonged heating will not restore heat-insulating qualities.

Of the advantages, one can name a simple technology, do-it-yourself floor insulation in a bath with expanded clay is considered the most affordable way of all existing ones. Expanded clay is ideal for a steam room and dressing room, but subject to good waterproofing and vapor barrier. The recommended layer thickness is up to 20 cm.

Mineral wool for the floor in the bath

Mineral fiber plates are used for insulation, basalt, gabbro-basalt or even slag processing products can be used, it is better not to use glass wool. Of the most popular brands, Rockwool or TechnoNIKOL are recommended.

The thickness of the thermal insulation layer for the steam room must be at least 15 cm, with mandatory protection of the vapor barrier on the lower layer and waterproofing on the upper one. Unlike expanded clay, thermal insulation with mineral fiber of the floor in the bath is possible only along wooden logs.

Foam materials

There is a certain prejudice in the use of expanded polystyrene and polyethylene foam in the insulation of the bath floor. Many owners of the bath, and experts too, believe that when the floor and walls are heated in the steam room, the appearance of polymer decomposition products is inevitable. In the case of walls and ceilings, this statement may have some basis in fact. Facing in the ceiling space can be heated up to 100 o C.

Insulation with polystyrene foam is the most durable

Another thing is the floor in the bath, it is always wet or even wet, the temperature rarely exceeds 50 ° C, so it is also possible to insulate the floor in the bath with polystyrene foam, but under the screed.

Advice! In cold climates, the floor in the bath can be additionally insulated using foil-wrapped polyethylene foam. One additional layer of thermal insulation can reduce losses through the floor by 20%.

How to properly insulate the floor in the bath

It is clear that the choice of insulation method fully depends on the design of the floor and foundation. For example, for a steam room installed on an uninsulated earthen base, moisture-absorbing insulation cannot be used. In this case, it will be necessary to make a screed and additional waterproofing of the base.

The scheme of warming the wooden floors of the bath on columnar supports

If the bath box is installed on piles, then the lower level of insulation is covered with a vapor barrier, and a waterproofing membrane is laid under the finishing floor, on top of the insulation. The same film acts as a water collector for the inlet funnel of the built-in sewage system.

Snipovskaya scheme of insulation for a bath on the ground

Insulation of the wooden floor in the bath

If it so happened that the bath box, including the floor, is on the ground, then the best option for warming would be to use EPS. Extruded polystyrene foam does not allow water vapor to pass through, so you can lay out and glue the sheets directly on the ground covered with plastic wrap. The next layer is laid from waterproofing, and then you can lay out the boards of the finishing floor. In the steam room, they are usually made removable to make cleaning and drying easier.

EPPS can be laid directly on the ground

It is customary to glue EPPS at the joints, therefore, if polyurethane glue is used and plates with a thickness of at least 50 mm are taken, then the bottom layer of the film can be completely abandoned. True, in this case, you will have to make a pillow of gravel and sand in order to protect the wooden floor and the entire bath building from ground moisture. If the room is planned for a steam room, then the wooden floor can be insulated with an additional layer of mineral plates.

Insulation on a sand and gravel pillow

The result is a very simple and dry floor, in which, apart from plank floorboards, there are no details, logs and beams made of wood, which means there is nothing to rot, there is no basis for the reproduction of the fungus.

Warming along the lags

In most cases, they try to raise the bath box on a foundation of piles or columnar supports in order to avoid rotting of the basement or the lower crowns of the walls. In this case, the floor is made on logs.

You can insulate the floor by laying EPS or foam plastic in the space between the wooden beams. A layer of waterproofing is preliminarily laid, then a heater and a vapor barrier membrane. The joints between the slabs and beams are blown with foam.

The second option involves the use of mineral wool slabs. In this case, there should be a ventilation gap between the wooden floor and the insulation surface, 10-15 cm high.

Thermal insulation on Rockwool with reflective foil

How to insulate a concrete floor in a bath

The easiest way to perform thermal insulation on the foundation is to use perlite concrete. Perlite moistened with water and a small amount of liquid soap are added to the usual solution. In this case, the mixture becomes fluid, and you can easily fill in insulation up to 12 cm thick.

A more complex, but at the same time better option for insulating a concrete floor in a bathhouse involves the use of an embedded insulating layer of XPS. A waterproofing film is laid on top of the laid polystyrene foam panels and beacons from a perforated profile are glued.

If the thickness of the screed is less than 40 mm, then a mesh of fiberglass reinforcement is preliminarily laid. It is clear that a concrete floor with insulation is just a rough basis; to ensure the necessary level of comfort in the bath, you will need to remember about the surface waterproofing and the sewer system.

Next, it remains to lay oak or larch beams and lay wooden floorboards. With such insulation, sanded boards are laid with a gap of 2-3 mm. The cracks do not interfere with walking in bath slippers and at the same time do not allow the wooden floorboards to swell and stand on end. In the process of cleaning, they are easy to remove, clean, dry and return to their place.

How to insulate the floor in the bath with your own hands: video

Oddly enough, but when arranging floor insulation in the steam room or other rooms of the bath, groundwater drainage is not done, these tasks are solved with the help of drainage laid around the perimeter of the foundation of the building.

The first thing to do is to tear off part of the soil inside the bath to a depth of at least 15 cm and replace the removed mass with a sand-gravel mixture or expanded clay, in which case the insulation will be softer. It is clear that the layer will need to be carefully planned and aligned with the rails.

At the second stage, the pillow is covered with a film and the main layer of foam or EPS insulation is laid out.

Next, a perlite concrete screed is poured and waterproofing is applied. A tile is laid on top of the concrete field. The use of floor ceramics in the steam room and dressing room usually causes a lot of controversy. It is believed that part of the heat is lost in this way, and the floor becomes slippery and unsafe.

On top of the insulation in the bath, you need to lay tiles and wooden ladders

In fact, the ceramic coating is ideal for a bath, tiles can be glued in one step throughout the bath, and wooden ladders can be laid on top.

As a result, we get additional bonuses:

Ideal waterproofing and insulation of the bath floor;
Lack of soil odors and penetration of fungi and bacteria from the ground;
Cleaning the floor in such a bath is much easier and faster than a purely wooden floor.

If it is required to insulate the floor with mineral wool, then a system of lags is assembled over the concrete screed, between which the slabs are laid. A PVC membrane is used as a vapor barrier, then a layer with a reflective coating and a finished floor made of wooden floorboards.

One of the options for laying Rockwool for floor insulation in the bath is shown in the video:

Warming folk methods

The simplest folk method is still used today, before steaming in a bath, a cold floor is poured with a large amount of boiling water. The procedure has to be performed until the oven warms up the floorboards, logs and underground. The technology is simple, but too troublesome.

For stone baths on the foundation, you can insulate the floor with a mixture of grated and burnt clay mixed with chopped reed stalks. To prevent the insulation from getting wet from moisture, the top was covered with larch or oak sawdust.

The most difficult option was to form channels in the subfield from clay and rye straw. When passing hot air from the stove, the floor of the bath warmed up and remained warm for 4-5 hours.

Conclusion

There are quite a few options for qualitatively insulating the floor in the bath. Even if you just do the waterproofing and vapor barrier correctly, then after laying the insulation material in the base, the floor of the bath will in any case be warm. Practice will show how durable the insulation made "by eye" will turn out.

The bath has a rich history and appeared in Old Slavic times. Ancestors believed that the heat seeps through the walls and ceiling the most, and how to insulate the floor in the bath was not given due attention. The floor also served as a drain, water came out through its cracks. As a result, the floor surface was the coldest place in the bath, because with such a design, the thermal insulation would inevitably rot. This approach can be found even now in summer cottages and farmsteads in warm southern regions.

Fans of heat in the northern regions need to take care of high-quality floor insulation, because despite the movement of heated air to the ceiling, part of it comes out through the genital cracks. Deciding which is better or the concrete floor in the bath is difficult, which means you need to choose a material with the best price-quality ratio.

Warming will also be required for health safety: in the steam room itself and in the dressing room, where quite often a person goes out, too high temperature drops are created, and this, in turn, negatively affects the body. Just in order to accelerate the heating of the room and prevent the penetration of cold, high-quality insulation is needed. To perform this work qualitatively, you need to know how to insulate the floors in the bath. This is what will be discussed next.

What needs to be prepared?

Bath thermal insulation is installed on “dry floors”, i.e. solid wood and concrete bases. With the use of such floors, water is drained due to their slight slope towards the liquid outlet (ladder). It is important to properly install the floor to prevent the insulation from getting wet, otherwise there is a risk of needing a complete rework of the floor.

If you are installing the floor with your own hands, then you probably want to choose the most modern and practical materials. In suburban areas, the bath is usually installed on concrete floors, or wooden logs.

Both in the first and second cases, it is necessary to deal with the insulation of floors in the bath, taking into account the characteristics of the base, and selection of insulation is necessary for a certain basis.

So, if the bath is built on piles, then a trench is needed for the installation of a drain ladder, into which a sewer pipe directed into the ground is then laid. To avoid unpleasant odors, a non-return valve is included in the design, as well as an adapter that will connect the ladder and the corrugated pipe leading to the ground.

Styrofoam.

In order to insulate the floor in the bath, polystyrene foam is best suited, which can be used to insulate both wood and wood. But most often this material is used to insulate wooden floors. This is dictated by the special qualities of such a material: it does not absorb moisture, has a small mass, and during its installation there will be practically no waste, because polystyrene foam lends itself remarkably well to an ordinary clerical knife.

Insulation of the floor in the bath is carried out mainly with wool, mineral and glass. When using such a material, it is very important to protect it from moisture as much as possible, for which you can make a layer of waterproofing over the insulation. If this is not done, then the possible penetration of moisture can significantly reduce the thermal insulation qualities of wool.

Another option for insulating floors in a bath, which is suitable for any base, is expanded clay, which is very similar in properties to mineral wool. When using expanded clay on wooden floors, additional waterproofing will also be required. For the perfect installation of expanded clay insulation under a concrete floor, one trick is needed - expanded clay is moistened with a light cement mortar, so the angle of 10 degrees required for draining will be observed.

Perlite.

For a concrete floor, perlite is perfect - a sand-based insulation in the form of dust, which is mixed with cement and water, and then poured between two screeds (lower and upper) of the concrete floor.

We prepare thermal insulation from perlite

To mix powdered sand, it is necessary to choose a room without a through breeze, and also close all doors and windows so that the material for insulated floors in the bath does not scatter.

After preparing the room, do the following:

Two parts of expanded clay are mixed with one part of water in a deep container, and then the mixture is allowed to “sit down”;
Half of the cement grade M300 or more is added to the solution (the full part is understood as a bucket);
Next, another bucket of water is poured into the mixture, and the composition is constantly and thoroughly stirred, at the end of the procedure, another half liter of water is added to the solution.

As a result, the resulting mixture should not look like conventional leveling and finishing compounds. The result should be a crumbly substance, which is kneaded to a plastic state, and then applied in an even layer along the lower level of the concrete screed, where it provides floor insulation in the baths. About a week after application, the layer will dry out, and it will be possible to pour a screed on it, as well as lay waterproofing.

We warm the wooden floor

Works related to the insulation of the floor in the bath are carried out according to a single principle - the insulation is placed between rigid layers and protected by a film. In wooden structures, the insulator is placed between the rough and finish floors.

Usually, floor insulation in the bath is carried out at the stage of building a house, but non-leaking structures can also be insulated in a finished house, just by removing the coating.

As already mentioned, polystyrene foam is best suited for warming a wooden floor, which has a closed cell type that does not allow moisture to pass through. If other materials are used, then the underground space must be additionally waterproofed. After the material is selected, it is possible to insulate the floor in the baths.

Floor waterproofing is very important.

Since the base consists of beams, wooden bars are nailed to them along the entire length, which will be needed to install the draft floor. Low-grade boards, which were pre-cut to a size smaller than the distance between the beams, are placed on the cranial bar. Thus, we got the first layer of the subfloor, on which the waterproofing is laid, most often it is a waterproofing membrane that also protects against steam. It is laid in such a way that the beams and the bottom of the walls are covered by 20 cm. The waterproofing is fastened with a stapler, and at the joints it is glued with a vapor barrier tape. A heater is laid on top of the vapor barrier, or another layer of the cranial floor along with a heater. If the selected heater requires it, then another layer of moisture and vapor barrier is laid, and the membrane can be replaced by an ordinary roofing material with seams sealed with mastic.

The space around the drain pipe is filled with mounting foam. Floor boards are laid on the result of the work, excess parts of the vapor barrier are adjusted and skirting boards are mounted.

It is important to remember that under the boards of the final version of the floor there should be a gap of about four cm, which will act as a ventilation and help with the drying of the wood, which in turn will help preserve the material with which we decide to insulate the floor in the bath.

We warm the concrete floor

A waterproofing material must be laid on the concrete slabs that make up the structure of the lower floor, or on the subfloor. Rolled material can be replaced with coating mastic, applying it in three layers. For greater reliability, you can try to connect the roll and coating material.

The concrete floor in the bath must be insulated.

To insulate a concrete floor, blocks of mineral wool, polystyrene foam or the aforementioned expanded clay are usually used. The thickness of the layer is selected depending on the material used to insulate the floor in the bath. Above the laid insulation, a reinforcing mesh is usually placed, which is located on special plastic or alabaster-cement supports, and a screed is poured over the reinforcing structure, which will complete the insulation of the floor in the bath.

How to insulate different rooms of the bath

Before insulating the floors in the baths, it is worth considering what each room of the building is intended for. So, it is logical that most of all waterproofing will be needed in the department where people wash, which means that in the dressing room and rest room you don’t have to worry about protection from water. If the insulation of the bath floor is carried out in an already built bath, then the ideal option would be to lay another one on top of the existing floor, located on the logs and having another layer of insulation. In general, for faster heating of the steam room, the floor in this room is made 10 cm higher than the others, thus reducing the size of the room, and therefore accelerating the heating of the bath.

A Russian bath is the place where a person relaxes, rests his body and soul, therefore, even during construction, it is necessary to think about the insulation of walls, ceilings and, most importantly, the floor in all rooms, because experts say that good insulation can reduce heat costs by almost two times. In addition, it takes much more time to heat rooms without proper insulation, and they cool down in a matter of hours.

The floor in the bath often serves not only as a place on which you walk, but also as a drain of water, which, in the absence of insulation and waterproofing, can rot very quickly and become covered with mold that is dangerous to health.

To visit the steam room to be as effective, useful and comfortable as possible, you need to know how to insulate the floor yourself. After all, the microclimate that forms in the bath itself, the dressing room and the rest room is so different that such a sharp temperature drop can adversely affect health, especially if you have small children.

*Important! If during the construction the issues of thermal and waterproofing were not taken into account, or if you got an already finished building for a bath, then you will have to completely dismantle the flooring and re-equip the floor.

In this article, we will consider several options for thermal insulation, the choice of which depends on the material of the flooring (the most common are wood and concrete) and its structure (screed on the ground, on the floor, and so on). Usually they use modern technologies or folk methods, which for many years have not lost their relevance among the owners of country houses and cottages. We will also give you a couple of practical tips and recommendations for warming the floor in the bath with your own hands.

Material selection

Since a bath is a place where an increased level of moisture and temperature is observed, professional builders recommend taking the choice of heat-insulating material very seriously, because it depends on its quality and proper installation whether the steam room will be in operation for many years without causing unnecessary trouble.

*Important! The main characteristic when choosing a heater is the level of its hydrophobicity, that is, the level of water absorption.

The choice of insulation depends on the material from which the floor is made. There is also a universal insulation with an excellent price-to-quality ratio - polystyrene foam and its twin brother - polystyrene foam. Due to their lightness, they can be easily cut into pieces of the required size, while both materials do not absorb moisture and have low thermal conductivity. In addition to these two, there are a large number of other materials:

Mineral and glass wool. They are used only for warming concrete floors. When used for wood decking, it is important to wrap the wadding in a thick layer of waterproofing because the wadding absorbs moisture very well and quickly loses its thermal insulation properties. And when wet, the structure quickly collapses;
Expanded clay. It is used only for warming concrete floors. It has similar characteristics with glass wool, requires an additional layer of hydro and vapor barrier. Expanded clay is used both in pure form and in the form of a mixture with cement. After the solution, the space between the lower and upper cement screed is poured.
Perlite. Material in the form of sand or dust, which is mixed with cement, water and poured between cement floor screeds. After hardening, it has a porous structure. Less commonly used for wood flooring. After hardening, perlite acquires a cellular structure, allowing to reduce heat loss in the steam room.

*Interesting! As a replacement for the above raw materials, no less high-quality analogues are sometimes used - building felt, cinder block and foam concrete.

Wooden floor insulation

Immediately before starting, some preparatory work should be carried out, namely:

Carry out the dismantling of the flooring, remove all the logs, and if you plan to use them after insulation, we recommend numbering all the boards;
All floorboards must be inspected for defects, chips, cracks and fungus. If this was found, it is better to replace the floorboard completely;

*Advice! When you lay the flooring back after all the manipulations, do not forget to leave a gap of 3-4 cm between the top layer of insulation and the wooden blocks. This will prevent the boards from deforming, and there will also be an additional layer of ventilation.

If the bath was built on soil with a high level of moisture, an ordinary roofing material is suitable as a waterproofing material. It must be laid so that the insulation layer does not have gaps and partially extends onto the walls.

Although wood is less durable than concrete, it is most often used to cover the floor in baths because of its environmental friendliness and high thermal insulation performance. The most popular trees for decking are:

Poplar;
Pine;
Fir;

*Important! If the boards in the dressing room and other rooms are covered with an antiseptic to prevent the wood fibers from being allowed to grow by fungal growths, then due to the high level of toxicity in the steam room itself, this should by no means be done.

The best choice as a heater would be a material with closed cells that do not allow moisture to pass through. The best option is expanded polystyrene, as well as its modern counterparts:

Ecowool;
Pena Aisinin.

This material is light, so it practically does not affect the weight of the entire wooden structure.

And so, the second step after the dismantling of the flooring. To lay a layer of insulation, it is necessary to create a support for the draft floor, increasing the lower edges of the log with bars smaller than the distance between the beams.

A layer of waterproofing is laid on the support of the subfloor, represented by a special membrane, which simultaneously protects against moisture and steam. If the bath is built on water soil, then a layer of roofing material is laid, which must necessarily cover all the boards and climb the walls to a height of twenty centimeters along the perimeter of the steam room. It is better to seal the formed seams with a vapor barrier tape, you can buy it in a specialized store, the average price is 520 rubles per 10 meters (strip width 70 mm), and the joints with a construction stapler.

Next, either another subfloor or insulation is laid on top of the waterproofing layer. The thickness of the total layer is usually 200-250 mm, depending on how much it is necessary to reduce heat loss, and on the financial capabilities of the owners.

Another layer of hydro and vapor barrier is laid on top of the insulation. At this stage, the membrane can be replaced again with roofing material, and the resulting seams can be sealed with mastic.

At the final stage, the space near the drain pipe is filled with mounting foam. A finished floor is already laid on top.

*Interesting! In the shower room, you can not nail the finished floor to the base, but leave it as it is. This will allow from time to time to easily remove it and dry it from the moisture accumulated there.

concrete floor insulation

Concrete flooring is very popular because of its durability. Due to its high strength, annual refurbishment of the floor can reduce costs. It usually consists of concrete slabs, blocks of mineral wool, polystyrene, as well as the aforementioned expanded clay are used for insulation. It is necessary to start warming only after carrying out work on the preparation of the lower cement screed (subfloor).

We lay the first layer of waterproofing. The easiest to install and inexpensive option would be to use a durable layer of polyethylene or roofing material. We spread the film around the entire perimeter of the steam room (it should protrude 5-6 centimeters onto the walls, later the extra edges can be easily cut off).

Insulation is laid on the waterproofing layer. For a more reliable fixation, you can fasten a wooden frame to the semi-draft using self-tapping screws or other fasteners.

As with the insulation of a wooden coating, we lay another waterproofing layer on the thermal insulation layer. When laying, the sheets are laid with an overlap of 10 cm and connected with a stapler.

At this stage, the last layer is poured with a special solution no more than two centimeters thick, then a reinforcing mesh is placed, which is located on special plastic supports.

After complete drying, using a self-leveling mixture, lay the final rough screed 5-8 centimeters thick. It is leveled using a special device - a needle roller, which removes all air bubbles. Sometimes, at the request of the owners, instead of a finishing screed, a layer of ceramic tiles or porcelain stoneware is laid.

Other premises

In addition to the steam room and shower room, there is also a dressing room in the bathhouse. The amount of moisture in it is several times less, therefore, when insulating, you can not lay a layer of hydroprotection, that is, it is enough to insulate the space between the rough and finish screed.

In the case when the bath has already been built, professional builders recommend not dismantling the floor covering, but simply performing insulation on top of the existing one. Of course, the volume and height of the room will decrease by raising the floor by ten to fifteen centimeters, but the room will heat up faster and stay warm longer.

Folk methods

Straw. For floor insulation, you can also use straw, but only rye. It must be mixed with liquid clay in a ratio of 1x1. You have to mix the clay manually or with your feet. With the resulting solution, fill the earthen base in the bath, level it and wait for it to dry completely.
Sawdust. The processing process is identical to that of straw. Sawdust can be used for any tree species, but coniferous are best. Because they contain special resinous substances in their fibers, which, when heated, are released into the air and thereby slow down the process of decay and the spread of moisture.
Bulk heaters. As a heater, you can use expanded clay, slag from factories, and so on. The raw materials are poured, usually on an earthen base 5-10 cm thick. From above, the layer must be compacted and poured with a thick layer of clay (10-15 cm, or more).

*Interesting! If you find it cold to stand on the floor, then the easiest and cheapest option would be to buy special wooden gratings. You can easily make them yourself, just make sure that there are no nails sticking out of anywhere, and also process the boards to get rid of knots. In stores, you can also buy special rubberized mats.

Let's summarize

If you have your own sauna, so that nothing interferes with a friendly warm atmosphere, in order to reduce the cost of fuel for heating the room, in order to reduce the time it takes to warm up the bath to the required temperature, you should think about insulation initially, during construction. But even if this issue was not taken into account, then it will not be difficult to dismantle the floor covering, and then insulate it.