"Warm" garage floor

[landyacht]

A bit of background first - my wife and I have an upholstery business. We use our garage as a workshop primarily. We possibly may one day put a car in there again, but not anytime soon. We pretty much live in the garage, and our kids love to be out there with us. We have heat in there, and it is insulated. The floor has vct tile which looks great, but the kids love to play on the floor and being a concrete slab, it is cold. I know that a heated floor - boiler, or electric mat would obviously be the best answer, but as I'm dealing with something already in existence, chipping up a slab is not something I'm interested in.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a new floor that I can put over what is there that would be warmer for the kids. Carpet is nice in theory, but won't stay clean, and we still bring the kids bikes and stuff wet from rain into the garage so water may be present. We have used some of those foam "jigsaw" mats, but I'm sick of tripping over them.
Just looking for options before the chill of winter really shows up
Thanks
Julian

 

[Denwood]

You can use 1" to 2" of closed cell styro and 1/2 to 3/4" plywood over that. There are commercial products like this as well for sale at Home Depot: http://www.dricore.com/en/rplus_about.aspx

It's a 2x2 subfloor tile with integrated R3. Either way the thermal break and insulation would make a big difference. Add carpet and underlay and the difference would likely be 10-15F. If you use commercial carpet tiles, you can designate an area for wet with VCT over the subfloor, and carpet tile the dry areas. Modular and easy to remove.

 

[Garage Flooring]

I would suggest a product like NORSK PVC or Snap Carpet. You can find both here http://www.garageflooringllc.com/garage-floor-tiles/

 

[Armorpoxy]

You could use our SupraTile www.supratile.com with the optional crumb rubber underlayment. Great to walk on and has a fair amount of insulating value.

 

[drnc]

Maybe switch to an on overhead radiant heater, like a SpaceRay? they tend to heat surfaces rather than just the air like a convection heater. I had one in my last garage and loved it.

 

[dynahoe]

radiant heater should do it

 

[BoostAddiction]

Why not insulate over the slab (say, 1" foam boards), then use a resistance heater system like Warmboard?

 

[Dick in Wisconsin]

Is there a foundation and footings around the perimeter of the garage? If so, dig down to the where the concrete ends and put in insulation.

What about the walls of the garage? Well insulated? Garage doors seal well?

Every little bit helps.

 

[Denwood]

The single largest problem with an uninsulated slab in Canada, is conductive heat loss from the slab to the ground. The single best way to mitigate that thermal loss (other than redoing the entire foundation/slab with insulation) is insulate the top surface of the floor.

We did a 4500 sq/ft retro at Cinevate's net zero (ish) project on the main floor which added 2" EPS and a thermal reflective layer over the existing slab...and then poured an extra 2" of concrete for the radiant system. The heat loss calculations for the original bare slab were quite high. Overall, the building uses a furred air space assembly. 9000 sq/ft costs less to heat than our 1800 sq/ft home. Temps here regularly hit -35C in winter.

The best buzz for your buck is to add as much insulation to the floor as your height restrictions will allow. 2" EPS and plywood sub floor will have the highest cost/benefit ratio over pretty much anything else.

We did a 2" over pour, with 2" insulation and mesh. This floor sees floor jacks loaded with pallets and has held up very well. Total floor thickness increase was 4" including the insulation.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Over 55 years ago, my aunt ran an upholstery business out of the basement. Cold floors were a killer. My uncle was a plumber and they already had hot water heat. He laid copper on top of the existing floor and then poured 2" of additional concrete over that. It was fun playing at his house in the basement in our socks !

The raised floor and piping held up for over 50 years.