Ventgrid Provides Ventilation and Airspace for Air and Water to Escape

Answer: Most houses built with basements in the last few years will have an insulated floor slab, which helps a lot in creating a warmer feeling floor. However, if your home was built before 2005, there's a good chance the slab is resting on gravel, which is in direct contact with the soil having a constant temperature of 50°F (10℃). As a result, the floor will feel "cold" (the proper phrase is "less warm") because it is a lower temperature than your body. This is the reason why your house has a cold basement floor in Canada. To understand why that is significant, let's think about fundamental physics concerning heat transfer. It is a fact that heat naturally moves from warm to less warm, and there are only three types of heat transfer: Convective (warm air rises. Think of a warm air balloon) Radiant (think of the heat from a fire) Conductive (think of touching a hot element on the stove) So, comparatively, the slab, being at a lower temperature than your feet, draws the heat from your feet which your brain senses and identifies as uncomfortable or "cold." The longer you stand on the floor, the more the heat will transfer from you to the slab and make you feel less and less warm and more and more uncomfortable. Our bodies generate heat, and just like any other heat source, we radiate heat energy as it gets absorbed by anything lower in temperature than our body, such as the air, furnishings, wall surfaces, and unheated floors. There is no practical way to eliminate this type of heat transfer, but it can be reduced significantly by raising the surface temperature of the biggest "heat magnet" in the room, which is the floor, and that's where Ventgrid12™ can help. Ventgrid12™ provides a thermal break between the floor finish and the less warm concrete slab by creating an air space between the two surfaces. Ventgrid12™ practically eliminates conductive heat transfer, much like a double pane thermal window reduces heat loss versus a single pain. So, the longer you continue to stand on the floor barefoot, the more you'll feel "cold" because the heat is being transferred out of your body right through your feet.

Answer: The term R-value as it relates to insulation is often misunderstood. The definition of R-value is – The measured resistance of a material to transfer heat energy. If we think about the three types of heat transfer, which ones affect a floor's temperature? Well, it's not convective, so radiant heat loss is a factor as is conductive, but conductive is the one we feel the most. Again, to use an analogy, think of the hot element on the stove. What would lead to a painful burn faster, holding your hand close to the component or on it? The answer is painfully apparent. When it comes to insulating a floor from conductive heat transfer, all that is needed is to create a gap, or in technical terms, a "thermal break," to stop the flow of heat from your feet to the slab beneath. Still not convinced? Well, try this little experiment: Save up a bunch (dozen or so) water bottle caps. Place them together side by side on the floor flat side up, covering an area roughly the same size as your foot. Then stand on top of them and feel the difference from standing flat on the concrete. No insulation in a bottle cap, but the difference is noticeable. Why? Because a thermal break was created between the concrete and your foot, almost eliminating the heat transfer. Why do people think we have to put rigid foam insulation on top of our floor to make it feel warm? Because they don't understand heat transfer, and some companies like to sell rigid insulation. But now you know that Ventgrid12™ will work as a perfect insulator from conductive heat loss, the only actual heat loss that makes us feel cold standing on our basement floor.