How To Make A Garage Concrete Floor Warm

For new construction homes electric heating cable is available that can be embedded within the concrete slab as it s being poured.

How to make a garage concrete floor warm.

Stop drafts and heat loss by filling any holes and cracks in the walls or between your baseboards and the floor with caulk or other sealant. With the walls and ceiling reasonably well insulated it should work fine. Cold concrete floors are a rather common problem and there are several approaches to warming them up. Insulating the garage portion sounds like more trouble than it s worth again unless you plan to work there a lot.

Depending on the wear your floor gets you may need to recoat every three to five years. An excellent move is to insulate the ceiling. Have the bars prepared before pouring. Keep the heating wires as close to the top as possible he writes.

The most common application however is an in floor heating system installed between the finished concrete slab and the flooring above. A few are expensive or not practical for some homes. These bars will provide strength to the concrete. That combined with an air heater will make your shop very pleasant to work in on demand.

In addition install or replace the weatherstripping around your doors and windows. Check out the podcast episode and please feel free to leave you comments or questions. Place the steel rods or rebar around the edges of the freshly poured concrete mix and through the middle of your floor if working with a large area. For extra durability consider applying a second epoxy coat or a finish coat of urethane sealer.

A typical diy epoxy kit provides enough primer or sealer and epoxy to apply one coat of each to an average one car garage. One of the most recommended systems. Set the wiring up on a simple timer so you hit the switch and come back in an hour and the floor will be warm. Rubber mats as suggested by charlie sound like a good idea if the floor seems too cold once you ve got the space isolated.

You can easily and inexpensively add clear plastic shrink film over windows for added protection against the cold. Cheap to install and run too. Hot air rises after all and it would be a pity to waste the warm air you are paying for your hvac system to produce by losing it through the ceiling. Insulate garage doors where possible as well as walls and ceilings.

But to make the most of the thermal mass benefits of concrete the slab and foundation should be insulated from both the ground and the air. Pour 3 inches or 5 cm.