Should I put EPS in between load bearing wall footing and slab?
repsol21
| Posted in General Questions on
I am building a house currently and today we layed 2 inch high density 25psi eps over top of Delta Ms. The Delta Ms sits on rock. The plastic barrier on top of everything. My question is, should i have continuous insulation over whole basement floor, or should i leave out the 2 inches of eps directly over the load bearing wall footer( so the slab can be continuos with the footer). My concrete guy says hes not down with continuous. I left if with the load bearing wall footer open(no insulation), with the Delta Ms over it, and then we put the plastic sheet over that tonight. We pour slab tommorow. Help please!
GBA Detail Library
A collection of one thousand construction details organized by climate and house part
Search and download construction details
Replies
You have three choices, all of which work fine.
- Please your concrete guy and pour without the insulation. The heat-loss will be negligible.
- Put the insulation back. The distributed load with 25 psi foam is fine, as long as you don't have any significant point-loads. If you do this you need to remove the Delta MS, so the foam is in direct contact with the footing below, not sitting on the dimples. ( I'm not wild about having the foam over the dimple matt anywhere, but it's definitely a problem at the footing)
- Put the foam back except for a 6" strip directly under the load-bearing wall above. You get a small area without insulation, and direct bearing from footing to slab.
Thank you sir! Going with uninsulated footer for load bearing wall this morning.