Cold Floor

[Steve L.]

I have two of these, the three foot long ones, which just cover the length of the aisle of the 16' Casita.
https://www.matsmatsmats.com/commerc...armer-mat.html

The floor is so toasty I love to walk around in stocking feet in the morning. Each mat about 100W. I've had them for years. They just lay on the carpeted floor.


I bought the optional hi/lo switches but I tend to just run them on high all the time but you might find them a little warm on bare feet on high.


Not enough to warm the whole trailer but really nice on the feet for the middle of the night comfort runs to the bath.


FWIW, I sleep with the bath door open so that the space heater keeps the seat comfortable.

[Dennis mn]

Originally Posted by CarlD

We are considering cork subfloor with floating cork tiles. Easy to remove if wet, antimicrobial, insulating. Does anybody have any experience with this material?

I put engineered cork flooring planks in my Scamp two years before we traded it. It looked much better than the carpeting Scamp installed, provide a bit of additional insulation, and was easy to keep clean.

[Francesca Knowles]

Skirting the trailer makes a huge difference if you're parked in one place long enough to bother with it. And if you have shorepower too a space heater under there makes it even better.

[Huck]

I put Exercise Mat with EVA Foam Interlocking Tiles in my Parkliner. Easy to take out and put back in, so I usually take them out after each trip, clean the floor, clean the mats, and then reinstall.

I like them so much I eventually used the same stuff in my van. I used 1/2" in the trailer and 3/4" in the van.

https://www.amazon.com/BalanceFrom-P...dp/B013A4ATCQ/

[Gilda]

We put engineered cork floors in our home 20 years ago. If they are not exposed to the sunlight they hold their color and surface really well. The cork near our French doors has cracked, dried out and faded. It isn't awful but it looks very different from the floors that are protected. In the trailer I'd want to keep the surface sealed so it's protected from water and ground in dirt.

[Dennis mn]

Originally Posted by Gilda

We put engineered cork floors in our home 20 years ago. If they are not exposed to the sunlight they hold their color and surface really well. The cork near our French doors has cracked, dried out and faded. It isn't awful but it looks very different from the floors that are protected. In the trailer I'd want to keep the surface sealed so it's protected from water and ground in dirt.

Agree totally. I first used engineered cork in my wood shop when I retired 10 years ago. I selected it because I felt it would not damage chisel edges when I inevitably dropped them, nor would it be damaged by those chisels. I was correct on both points; however, the surface finish is not withstanding the many miles that I walk on it using planes, and various other hand tools. It is a fine floor surface, just not perfect.

[Raspy]

Originally Posted by CarlD

We are considering cork subfloor with floating cork tiles. Easy to remove if wet, antimicrobial, insulating. Does anybody have any experience with this material?

I've had experience with it in houses over slab floors. It is just a bit softer to walk on than a hard wooden, concrete or laminate floor. It is quiet. Dropped things are less likely to break. It does insulate some and feels warmer on bare feet than, again, a laminate floor. And it is surprisingly durable. I have seen it in 40 year old homes and it is used in commercial stores. I've only seen it in thin glue down squares of either 9" or 12". It can also be varnished if you wish.

[rgrugg]

Whatever you put in to make your floors warmer will be the same temp as the floor but won’t draw the heat out of your feet so it’ll feel warmer but won’t actually be warmer BUT your feet themselves will be warmer because they won’t have heat drawn out of them like on the bare floor.

[Thane]

I used butcher paper to make a cut out template of the floor and used padding and carpet remnants from a local store. Quick and cheap.

[redbarron55]

I put 1/4" cork over the plywood and under the vinyl plank flooring in my Scamp and if it helps cold flooritis, I have yet to detect it.
I can't imagine it colder, but then we are from the south and 40* is frozen North weather.
My guess would be that glueing some foam board under the floor would keep more heat in than anything.
Of course one problem is that all of the heat is everywhere but at the floor so it stays cold and there is little you can do about it other than aim the heater at it.

[felix2]

Originally Posted by Dennis mn

I put engineered cork flooring planks in my Scamp two years before we traded it. It looked much better than the carpeting Scamp installed, provide a bit of additional insulation, and was easy to keep clean.

Exactly what I did in the Burro. Got it at Home Depot, installed in around 2 hours. warm and hides dirt too!

[Ed Harris]

I have the interlocking foam tiles in the Casita but I found some that are carpet covered!

All the benefits of the standard ones but also carpeted.

The carpet seems to wear out in a few years so I just replace tiles as needed.

There are a few places online where you can order them.

[Raspy]

Originally Posted by redbarron55

I put 1/4" cork over the plywood and under the vinyl plank flooring in my Scamp and if it helps cold flooritis, I have yet to detect it.

The idea of cork is not to use it as an insulating barrier between the subfloor and the finish floor. You use cork flooring as the finish floor itself. Laminate, or vinyl, or other hard floors have a higher specific heat and our feet can't warm the surface we are standing on as easily as we can a cork floor, or a carpeted floor. Cork feels softer and warmer because it is an insulator and is easy to heat with our feet. It's unlikely you will ever get the floor temperature to be warm in cold weather. But it can feel "warmer" if you use the right flooring.

The other way, of course, would be to make a radiant heat floor. This can be done with warm water in small diameter tubing, circulating warmth between the inner and outer layers of the floor, or with resistance electrical heating wire embedded in the floor. Either one can carry the entire heating load and eliminate the need for a conventional propane heater, but it may not be practical in a trailer because it will add thickness and reduce the interior headroom by about 5/8". The circulating water system would move hot water from the water heater through the floor tubing and back through the water heater. No water gets wasted as it re-circulates the water. It is controlled by a room thermostat. Extremely comfortable and very quiet, with no more cold floors. This is the most comfortable form of heat there is.

[John in Santa Cruz]

The hot water heater likely would run continuously if you were doing this, and you'd have warm water rather than hot when you take a shower or wash with it. lets see, 12000 btu water heater, 430000 btu in a 20 lb propane bottle, thats 35 hours of heat per bottle.

[Raspy]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

The hot water heater likely would run continuously if you were doing this, and you'd have warm water rather than hot when you take a shower or wash with it. lets see, 12000 btu water heater, 430000 btu in a 20 lb propane bottle, thats 35 hours of heat per bottle.

The heating load is the same whether you heat with radiant or forced air, so the time the propane lasts is the same, assuming the efficiency of the heaters are similar, and that each system is delivering the same number of BTUs. If the water heater was overloaded, which it would not likely be (depending on the size of the trailer, the floor area, and the insulating value in the walls), the thermostat could be turned down for a couple of minutes before a shower.

A radiant floor in a trailer is not very much area, so the delivery would probably be similar to what an electric heater will deliver. So, if an electric heater could keep up with the heating load, the radiant floor could too. And this is only about half of what an RV water heater produces. So, the floor would not overload the water heater in trailers of the size we are discussing here.

A typical plug in electric heater produces about 5,000 BTU max. A typical RV propane water heater delivers (at 80% efficiency) about 9,600 BTU. So, with a radiant floor delivering approximately what an electric heater would produce, a propane water heater would be running about 50% of the time. Definitely not overloaded. It also means the 35 hour estimate would be extended to 70 hours under full load. At some point, the weather could be so cold that the heat delivery could not keep up with demand, but that is the case with any heating system. What we are talking about here is "cold floors". Radiant is the best way to fix that problem.

Radiant heat is the most comfortable type of heat.

An RV water heater is much quieter than an RV heater with a fan, so the heat would be quieter and more comfortable, possibly use less battery power, and the floor would be toasty warm.

[John in Santa Cruz]

I'd imagine heating the floor of the typical trailer, you'd lose a lot of that heat out the bottom... like 50% even, unless you could insulate the underside.

we had radiant heating in a house years ago, I remember it as taking forever to warm up, and not being very energy efficient. my parents were frugal new englanders transplanted to the west coast, and insisted on turning the heat off until it was cold, then it would never get warm.... the system was built with an 'anticipator' outdoor thermostat that would bring up the heat when the outside got cold, so it would warm the interior before the inside got cold, but no, that was too wasteful for them.

[Raspy]

The idea is to do better than the worst way we can think of, just as antique cars don't drive as well as new ones. And since trailers don't have concrete slab floors, there is no huge mass to warm up. As far as losses go, a good way to loose heat is to blow it around with a fan inside an uninsulated area, as forced air heating does in trailers. Since a lot of fiberglass trailers have little if any insulation and single pane windows, blowing heat around is very inefficient. Radiant doesn't blow the heat.

Some losses out the bottom can be an advantage in that it protects the tanks from freezing. Oliver, for example, runs the warm heating ducts below the floor for this reason.

Every system has tradeoffs, but radiant works well and would be nice to have. It's also the system used in the Bowlus Road Chief.

The original question in this thread was how to keep the floor warm in cold weather. Not only can you keep the floor warm, but the entire trailer warm as a result.

[CarlD]

I was investigating radiant floor heating for my trailer, however, keeping the system from freezing is an issue. You need to have a closed loop system filled with antifreeze. A lot of folks dry camp in cold weather to avoid freezing issues. There are radiant floor heating systems available for RVs utilizing a on demand heater with heat exchangers and associated components, but they are expensive. Too many issues for me, I am going with a Propex.

[CarlD]

As far as keeping my the floor warm use a couple electrically heated mats. and throw rugs.

[M_C]

We installed the interlocking tiles, cheap, easy and effective. The three most important factors to me.