Creating a walking floor using polystyrene crosses and insulation with glass wool
On the new construction of the family house was implemented walking floor in the uninsulated attic. This was an interesting action, because we were inspired by the ISOVER system. The walking floor was created thanks to a combination of polystyrene beams, to which an OSB board was fixed and ISOVER glass wool was used as a filler between these elements. We wanted to save money, so we made the supporting beams ourselves, including the winding crosses. It cost us some time but the result was worth it. A very important part of this composition is not to cover the whole thing with OSB boards, but to ventilate it. This will ensure that any condensed water vapour that might form in the glass wool can be nicely vented and dried into the uninsulated loft space. The composition of the crawl space floor is shown in the following list.
- Tack layer made of OSB boards (the joints between them are covered by a ventilation grid).
- Air gap.
- ISOVER glass wool with a height of 30 cm.
- Vapor barrier.
- Reinforced concrete ceiling.
The procedure was as follows. First, the crosses, including the beams, were laid out to form the basic substructure grid. On this polystyrene, boards were glued with PU foam, which served to anchor the OSB boards with screws. Glass wool was placed between the EPS elements and then the whole thing was covered with OSB boards with roughly a centimetre gap. This is then covered with a ventilation grid.
For the whole event, we have secured a polystyrene cutter, which I think everyone who is starting to build a family house should have. It’s a priceless helper and working with it was more fun than work. The procedure on how to make the cross, which is the most important element of the whole system – it winds it up. You can buy the polystyrene cutter in our e-shop at the following link. We have also created a video that shows you how to easily work with the polystyrene cutter.
And for fun, I’ll show you what we’ve made out of waste for the kids. We have created an interesting meme-technical tool that can be used by the teachers in Montessori kindergarten.
