Ordered insulation for my shop floor, but....

[Ronald Blue]

You are concerned about not losing any additional height but Owens Corning foamular is available in 1-1/2" thickness and gives you an R value of 7.5. You barely exceed your 2" limit and gain 50% more R value. Another possibility might be to lay an electric in floor heat grid in the floor where you will primarily be standing. Another possibility if you still feel your feet chilled are these types of mats made for livestock. You can find them at farm supply stores that cater to livestock producers but they may or may not be readily found in your part of the country. Here's a link for a 2' x 4' size.

osbornelivestockequipment.com/product/stanfield-heat-pad-s2b4/

[Damon McLaughlin]

You are concerned about not losing any additional height but Owens Corning foamular is available in 1-1/2" thickness and gives you an R value of 7.5. You barely exceed your 2" limit and gain 50% more R value. Another possibility might be to lay an electric in floor heat grid in the floor where you will primarily be standing. Another possibility if you still feel your feet chilled are these types of mats made for livestock. You can find them at farm supply stores that cater to livestock producers but they may or may not be readily found in your part of the country. Here's a link for a 2' x 4' size.

osbornelivestockequipment.com/product/stanfield-heat-pad-s2b4/

I actually have one of those animal heat pads at my desk (embellishing station) and it works great. I could put them where I stand the most but I felt an insulated floor would help the best. Everything is arriving tomorrow, I probably won't start for a day or two, I imagine it won't take very long considering the size of the shop. With my heater running 24/7 last winter with the temperature set at 68 degrees it only cost about $50 a month to heat my shop, not bad. With insulated floors I suspect it will be less but not too much less. It'll just be nice not to have a floor that is too cold.

[Jim Becker]

You are correct that the insulated floor will likely bring additional comfort, even if it doesn't radically change your heating costs...and that's a good thing. Warm feet = happy feet.

[Damon McLaughlin]

The delivery truck showed up yesterday at 9am, by 5pm I was done with the floor. The 1" xps insulation was very easy to cut, snap and glue into place. The plywood wasn't quite as easy to work with. The tongues were really beat up and hard to get into the grooves. At Lowe's I was told this was their best plywood as it had no voids. Three sheets went in as full size pieces, when I started cutting the others to size I was really disappointed in all the voids that were present. The floor looks good but when rolling my bandsaw or table on their mobile bases I hear a lot of cracking, probably weak spots over the voids. So now I am wondering if I need to go over budget and find something to go over the subfloor that would add some strength.

I turned kept the heater on all night last night and the floor is ten degrees warmer than what it was before adding the insulated floor. This may not sound like a lot but for someone that has Raynauds its a huge improvement. When I turned off the heater at 6am I also noticed that the shop held its temperature much longer, dropped very slowly than before. All in all I'm quite happy. Now I need to move the rest of my stuff from the garage back to the shop.

[Jim Becker]

Damon, for future reference, you'll likely be able to source better quality material from a local, independent, full service lumber yard. That said, T&G plywood like that is typically sold as underlayment, so there's no guarantee of it being void free on the top surface since that doesn't matter for its normal usage. A full service place, however, might be able to "pick" carefully when the intention is for the material to remain exposed. If you have voids, you can fill them with epoxy, body filler like Bondo, etc., to avoid catching things in a depression. (I know all about that as there are a few places in my shop floor where original wall anchors came out that I've failed to fill to-date...and they are sawdust traps. LOL)

'Glad you got the job done and it's warmer already!