Cold floors under crawlspaces

The house my wife and I purchased 2 years ago has a partial basement with a crawlspace under the living room and one of the bedrooms, and another unconnected crawl space under an addition which is the master bedroom & bath. The floors are very cold and i'm not sure which I should do to insulate them. They're both unvented and open to the basement via crawl holes in the wall. Should I insulate the walls (brick in the older crawlspace and cinder block in the newer part) or insulate in between the floor joists?

Thanks in advance!!

Troy

 

If you can isulate in between the floor joist I think that is ideal. I have a cape with crawl and when I moved in all the insulation was missing or on the crawl space floor. What I did was remove all the insulation and insulated only above the sill plates. I then add a 10 ft pieice of baseboard in the crawl to heat that area. I close the lille vent windows to outside in the winter and open in the summer. I do have an addition that I cant get to and that floor is cold. I did not put the addition but if I ever rip up the floor I would insulate from the top.. My gas budget is 91 dollars a month. 1500 sq ft cape. Electric 76 a month budget. Two zones.

I live cheap.

Mike NJ

 

Just another twist. Since you have no ventilation in the crawl, I would insulate the joists, vapor barrier up and stabilizer wires. Heating that space may make an ideal area for mold to grow, so I probably wouldn't heat it. (*)Some on the forum would recommend encapsulating the area and even running HVAC into it, but I haven't been sold on that, yet. Where I live, crawl ventilation is required, so we generally use the automatic vents. Keeps the crawl dry.
Here ya go (*)Airman!! I primed the pump.

 

I forgot to mention there are water pipes running through one section of the newer crawlspace but they're near the access hole in the basement which is also right at the bottom of the stairs and HVAC ducts in both of them.

 

unless you want to heat the crawl space, bedroom slippers & throw rugs will help more,,, our hall, kitchen, breakfast room, & downstairs bathroom floors are cold, too - even w/full bsmt which we don't heat

 

Where are you located?

Are there any heating/cooling ducts there?

Gary

 

What I did in my house (which has a crawlspace under one room and a basement under the rest) was to insulate between the floor joists that are over the crawlspace. We then had wall to wall carpet installed in the room over the crawlspace. The floor is reasonably warm, but not as warm as the floors over the basement. Because the heating unit (oil fired boiler)for the house is located there. We are located in NY.

 

I insulated between the joists and then tried doing the walls, I tried both ways, just seemed like insulating the walls was alot better. When I did the joists, the floors were just too cold, the cold just comes right up through, but insulating the walls seems to keep all that concrete and brick from absorbing all the heat out of the crawlspace.

My first instinct was to insulate the joists though, like others here said.

If you insulate the walls though, the entire crawlspace becomes kind of like the air between window pains.