Heat insulation of wood vs carpet

[Yong Huang]

Can anybody tell me if I'm reading this corectly? I want to compare the two materials' heat insulation.

According to

thick hardwood has an R-value of 0.12 using SI unit (not the US unit).

According to

thick carpet has an R-value of 0.18 in SI.

So 1-inch carpet would have 0.18*2.54=0.4572, about 3.8 times as much as that of hardwood. Correct?

One more question. Among various types of hardwood, which type is better (even though none is better than carpet)? I'm going to have the carpet in the upstair bedroom replaced with hardwood. Considering its heat insulation is meaningful when the bedroom is above the garage or car port.

Thanks.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Insulation difference is small. What you will find is that wood will feel colder to the bare foot than carpet. It has nothing to do with insulating value, but the surface contact area of a smooth surface is greater than a carpet weave.

Use a hardwood you like and a couple of throw rugs where you stand or feet contact when you get out of bed.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Solve the problem by having hard wood and rug of you choice. That room must be pretty noisy when car comes and goes in the garage.

[aemeijers]

That, and consider all the electrons you will use up keeping carpet vacuumed, while a simple dust mop once a week keeps hardwood presentable. Not to mention how hardwood floor is much better for people with allergies, to sleep in.

-- aem sends...

[HeyBub]

Correct. But the difference is undetectable with anything other than instruments of laboratory quality.

I'd guess Balsa Wood is the best due to its porosity and trapped air. 'Course Balsa is not what one would exactly call 'hardwood'...

It's difficult - and usually futile - to insulate a floor. Better to insulate the garage ceiling. There you can add R30!

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip-

Ed mis-spelled 'insignificant'.

Exactly-

And while you're working in that room, make sure the joist space is well insulated.

Jim

[The Henchman]

Is the hardwood you are interested in floating type or solid planks you nail. if it's a floating type like engineered hardwood it may be a bit warmer. Those hardwood floors can use a 6 mil foam type underlay plus the hdf or mdf base of the planks might not transfer as much cold either. The actual hardwood part of engineered hardwood floors is only 3 or 4 mil thick. Solid hardwood floors might transfer more cold from the garage and the subfloor.

Here's my expierence. I have solid oak hardwood flooring in my bedroom that is above a garage. last fall I had a brand new garage door installed. R-12 with a really durable yet flexible weather stripping. Made in Canada door for my Canadian house. Garage door and bedroom window in above bedroom face west. Great for getting hit by most winter winds.

Before, the garage would get down to as low as 28 degrees but this winter garage stayed above 40 all winter. My wife and I say that translated into a 3 degree difference in our bedroom and we no longer need to keep an electric heater in our room.

Even in this hot hot hot summer our bedroom temp has been lowered from 78 to 76 during the day. With the fan ciculating air around that room settles down to 75. In other words the best thing we did to get ideal temperatures for our bedroom was change the garage door underneath.

[Jules Richardson]

We've mostly got hardwood flooring... and pets. It's incredible how much hair and dust they generate, which can be easily swept away, but much of which would probably end up stuck in a carpet otherwise.

I'm up in northern MN and even in winter the hardwood floors aren't

*that* cold (and on the lower floor we've just got cold basement beneath, so similar to the OP's room-above-a-garage) - I think the idea of a rug just beside the bed's a good one though.

cheers

Jules

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm, No wonder above garage is a bad place to locate any bedroom. I had 5 houses built during the course of my family life, never had a bedroom above garage. Open deck or 3 season sun room are what I had. I don't like noise when car moves in and out of garage. At present our garage door is Steel Craft with foam core R12 walls, R20 ceiling above is 3 season sunroom and dry sauna. I am in Calgry

[dpb]

On 7/31/2011 1:11 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote: ...

...

Nit... :)

It's really not the surface contact area difference (after all, your feet are touching something on all the surface and in fact in the softer carpet may have more actual area in contact than on a bare floor assuming you do have _some_ arch ) but the difference in heat transfer coefficient--the hardwood or tile is much more effective as a heat sink so the skin surface cools much faster (and thereby actually is cooler) than against the carpet...

--

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, We always wear slippers inside house. As soon as coming inside we take off socks, put on slippers throughout seasons.

[The Henchman]

You've mentioned car noise a couple of times in this thread but honestly how many times are you gonna move your car in and out of a garage in a coarse of a day. I bet the majority of people are like me, garage is for storage and work. The train tracks near me cause more noise in the bedrooms and after a week we got used to that and never noticed it now.

The previous owners of my house were the exception, they used the garage for thier little Yaris.

As for decks? There is more noise there: neighbours, engine braking from trucks coming down the steep hills, sirens, helicopters etc

[Yong Huang]

So you're saying solid planks will keep the room cooler than floating type in summer? I'll go with solid planks then.

Thanks to everybody's response. I use Google Groups to post and read. For some reason, the messages are delayed for a few days.

Also, I'm going to ask the contractor to add insulation between joists, as Jim advised, if there's no insulation yet. Thanks again.