How to insulate floor of addition built on screw piles?

[cidley69]

Considering putting an addition on house, using screw piles and beams as foundation.

Plumbing supply and waste lines, and heat ducts will need to go beneath floor. Addition will be 22' long x 29' width of house .

Anyone built something similar or have ideas how to insulate it?

Would boxing in area below joists and putting heat vents from furnace be a good idea?

[ExtraSlow]

Owned a house with an addition of this type, and I can say that of the two options, 1) insulating the floor and 2) insulating and heating the space uner the floor, #2 is MUCH better. My addition was #1, and the floor was always cold, and I'm sure any plumbing would have frozen.
Basically you are building a little basement there.

[spikerS]

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Owned a house with an addition of this type, and I can say that of the two options, 1) insulating the floor and 2) insulating and heating the space uner the floor, #2 is MUCH better. My addition was #1, and the floor was always cold, and I'm sure any plumbing would have frozen.
Basically you are building a little basement there.

+1

[cidley69]

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+1

Does the heated space need a cold air return? Or would a few heat duct/vents open to this area suffice?

[ThePenIsMightier]

Someone who is smarter with the woods will chime in, but my crystal ball sees Spray Foam in your future.

My guess is you will have a "utility corridor" that's boxed in and filled with foam.

- - - Updated - - -

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Does the heated space need a cold air return? Or would a few heat duct/vents open to this area suffice?

Without a cold air return, your furnace fan is trying to be a compressor and they are terrible at that.

[ExtraSlow]

The only way this isn't shitty is to make the space below that floor a fully HVAC'ed space like any living area.

Any half—assery will give poor results.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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The only way this isn't shitty is to make the space below that floor a fully HVAC'ed space like any living area.

Any half—assery will give poor results.

I only like this idea of it's about comfort rather than relying on a heat vent to prevent pipes from freezing within 4 hours if* something goes wrong.
*When

[cidley69]

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I only like this idea of it's about comfort rather than relying on a heat vent to prevent pipes from freezing within 4 hours if* something goes wrong.
*When

Its only about comfort. Will be designed/insulated sufficiently to not allow pipes to freeze.

[ThePenIsMightier]

The next issue is to consider piling. You're not likely going to want to get an engineer and you're certainly not going to want to get geotech done, but you also really really really don't want to have this add-on sink a couple inches or suffer the dreaded differential settlement.
In my area, the builder had a couple of decks sink a bit and then the mitigated that by putting something like 9 piles under my tiny deck, which is ludicrous, but a cheap solution that doesn't involve nerds.

So... Not engineering advise, but use too many piles and drill them as deep as you can and until the Bobcat stalls or something along those lines.

Next time you're in a work computer, Google Image "screwing until refusal".

[cidley69]

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The next issue is to consider piling. You're not likely going to want to get an engineer and you're certainly not going to want to get geotech done, but you also really really really don't want to have this add-on sink a couple inches or suffer the dreaded differential settlement.
In my area, the builder had a couple of decks sink a bit and then the mitigated that by putting something like 9 piles under my tiny deck, which is ludicrous, but a cheap solution that doesn't involve nerds.

So... Not engineering advise, but use too many piles and drill them as deep as you can and until the Bobcat stalls or something along those lines.

Next time you're in a work computer, Google Image "screwing until refusal".

Planned to hire a screw pile company... didn't realize this stuff needed to be analyzed so closely.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Planned to hire a screw pile company... didn't realize this stuff needed to be analyzed so closely.

They'll probably know what they're doing.

[schurchill39]

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Next time you're in a work computer, Google Image "screwing until refusal".

Well I HAD a work computer before google image searching that. Now I have date with HR