Thermal Break For Concrete Floors

Any gab in this thermal envelope is an avenue for heat loss known as a thermal bridge.

Thermal break for concrete floors.

Stones gravel keep the plastic from blowing away. The thermal break insulates the interior floor slab from the exterior exposed slab edge while transferring the loads imposed on the exposed slab edge back to the interior floor slab. Notice that there is no welded wire mesh. Rigid foam is a nice option because it provides an excellent thermal break between concrete and flooring.

Photograph 4 is a thing of beauty. A thermal break worthy of great artisans. The bars tie into the rebar. The thermal breaks consist of a graphite enhanced expanded polystyrene module with stainless steel rebar running through the insulation for tension and shear resistance.

Remember that the thermal envelope is the boundary between the inside conditioned space and the outside. In older details a timber strip was used but branz bulletin 576 edge insulation of concrete floor slabs shows a new detail that incorporates a 10 mm thick strip of xps with an r value of r0 25. Concrete placement shows concrete being placed on the top of the sheet polyethylene and a layer of xps insulation.