Draughts from under floor

Hi all:

Any suggestions as to how this draught problem can be fixed/gap sealed?

The kitchen, floor is covered with ply board and a kitchen was put in about 15 years ago. The visible part of the kitchen floor was then tiled.

However underneath the kitchen units, there is a gap between the ply board on the floor and the wall of about one inch and the draught is coming up through that.

Any suggested way to fill that gap? Its tricky to get at and some of it falls into nothing, and there's probably a big gap/void underneath the floor board.

Or is there a different way to go about the job without having to take the kitchen units out?

Thanks for reading.

I'm guessing that the problem is the same as tihs, however my kitchen floor is tiled so it would basically mean taking up the whole floor and taking out the kitchen units to do a similar job.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058081665

Lumen

You could try spraying closed cell foam using a gun applicator, but it's not going to be pretty.

Air tightness is a bit of a mole whack. Since the draughts are often driven by pressure differences, if you reduce the size of the holes you may end up with more noticable draughts as the air is pushed faster through the remaining gaps.

Thanks for that Lumen, and for sure I'll be expecting the draught to be diverted elsewhere, but hopefully to a lesser degree (?) and I'll then chase it down where I can and repeat the process.

The problem was causing an equivalent of having left a window open with the draught ripping through the kitchen door into the living room.

I've decided to part seal/stuff the gap with flexi-pipe foam and then to grip fill pieces of 1 x 3 timber to the floor and the wall and probably silicon/seal that again. Failing that I'll sell the house : )

Yellow_Fern

Take your time with this. There is no rush. Do the job carefully, because draught reduction is far more effective at making a house warm than adding insulation.

Is the wall we are looking at drywall? To seal these draughts I recommend spending a lot of time cleaning the junction until it is clean and dust free. Then and only then apply airtightness tape. It may be worth finding someone with very long arms to do this. With the tape you have a seal that can last 50+ years and you can easily find any mistakes. expanding foam is extremely messy, can break down and makes it hard to find errors.

Thanks Yellow Fern. I carried out some work soon enough after my original post and it has made a very significant reduction in draughts. The kitchen and two adjoining rooms and a corridor are now significantly warmer.

But I'd agree your suggestion was one that I should have given consideration to.

However the gaps were probably too far away for the tape to be effectively applied. I have long enough arms and the wall was barely reachable. I don't know the product sufficiently well enough to know if the surfaces could have been cleaned and levelled adequately enough for the application to be effectively applied. The wall was also an exterior wall.

The positioning of the legs of the units also made it difficult to work around but the short batons were workable.

But I would definitly recommend anyone reading in on this to consider your suggestion.

What I did do was to cut wooden batons and applied a good amount of grip fill, on both the underneath and side, and I was then able to position these correctly and then apply pressure to them to make the seal more effective with the floor and adjoining wall. And as I say, there has been an immediate and very significant improvement.

I think to apply any product with 100% efficiency, the units would have had to be removed, but I can't be 100% sure on that.

Yellow_Fern

Gemma Scary Baton wrote: »

Thanks Yellow Fern. I carried out some work soon enough after my original post and it has made a very significant reduction in draughts. The kitchen and two adjoining rooms and a corridor are now significantly warmer.

But I'd agree your suggestion was one that I should have given consideration to.

However the gaps were probably too far away for the tape to be effectively applied. I have long enough arms and the wall was barely reachable. I don't know the product sufficiently well enough to know if the surfaces could have been cleaned and levelled adequately enough for the application to be effectively applied. The wall was also an exterior wall.

The positioning of the legs of the units also made it difficult to work around but the short batons were workable.

But I would definitly recommend anyone reading in on this to consider your suggestion.

What I did do was to cut wooden batons and applied a good amount of grip fill, on both the underneath and side, and I was then able to position these correctly and then apply pressure to them to make the seal more effective with the floor and adjoining wall. And as I say, there has been an immediate and very significant improvement.

I think to apply any product with 100% efficiency, the units would have had to be removed, but I can't be 100% sure on that.

Well I hope it went well and come winter you will know for sure. In the long term it is worth looking at why there is cold air circulating there and if it can be prevented from getting behind the drywall in the first place. Good luck!