My house has a very small kitchen which is actually an extension of the house with its own roof.
I suspect its roof insulation is old and not effective, because this kitchen is quite cold (8 degres celsius sometimes in winter).
Landlord says the room is cold because the floor is made of concrete with tiles on top of it. I personally find the roof explanation more convincing, but I admit that the floor in this kitchen is extremely cold. Sometimes I get out of the kitchen just because my feet are cold.
So is it possible that the landlord's explanation be correct? Can the floor make a room cold? And if so is there a way to make the room less cold?
Best Answer
Yes, the room can be very cold because of the floor.
Concrete slabs do not insulate well (R-value around 0.6!), and they lose most of their heat along the outside edge of the slab (the ground beneath the slab is a decent insulator). Using a Heat Loss Calculator, I assumed you had a 10x10 room with a completely uninsulated floor (concrete), uninsulated walls (stick built w/drywall), and ceiling (drywall ceiling with an uninsulated attic).
Heat loss was 4050 BTU/hour from the floor, 5440 BTU/hr from the walls, and only 1540 BTU/hr from the ceiling.
So, while your ceiling may be a factor, it's probably not the most major factor. Given that your floor is very cold, you probably don't have much (or any) insulation on that slab.
On the outside of the building, see if you can see the edges of the concrete slab. If you can, then it's not insulated. Buying some one-inch R-5 foam insulation and affixing that to the perimeter of the concrete slab drops the heat loss from 4050 BTU/hour in half to 2050 BTU/hour. Two-inch, R-11 insulation drops the heat loss to only 1050 BTU/hour.
Placing a rug on the floor would likely be insufficient, as carpet only gives an R-value of around 1.3 (and an area rug isn't going to cover the entire floor, anyway).
Edit with more information:
Consider a house built on an uninsulated concrete slab. Insulating the slab can lead to a reduction of 10-20% in total heating costs. Of the heat lost through a concrete slab, up to 80% is lost through the exposed outside edges.