Do-it-yourself floor heating in the garage

The room in which the car is standing must be warm. And many car owners will agree with this, because by giving protection to the cold to your iron horse, you can significantly increase its life. Therefore, even when building a garage, many pay attention to thermal insulation. As a rule, walls and gates are reliably protected from frost - with conventional heat insulators that are mounted using frame technology. But the issue of floor insulation in the garage is paid much less attention. And it’s completely in vain, because with the onset of frost, the cooling of a garage space without proper insulation takes place mainly through the floor, and not through the walls. This is due to freezing of the soil, especially in severe cold. Therefore, we propose to carefully study the question of how to make a heated floor in the garage with your own hands.

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Pros of a warm garage

The advantages of owning a garage box for many car owners are obvious, as is the presence of the box itself, because storing a car on the street is a lot of trouble:

• A car left in the yard, after snowstorms and snowfalls, often has to be rescued from snow captivity, armed not only with a brush, but also with a shovel.
• In winter, many car owners leaving cars on the street, especially domestic ones, have to suffer from a cold start and without fail to warm up the engine at idle.
• In severe frosts, your car may not start at all, and you simply will not have time to do all the planned things.
• And of course, parking in the courtyard, where other cars are constantly parked, is fraught with at least scratches, the cause of which is often difficult to find out.

If everything is obvious with the advantages of owning a box, then the question of whether it is necessary to heat it and install a warm floor in the garage with your own hands causes a lot of controversy among car owners. Some consider it a waste of time and money. Others - on the contrary, with both hands for:

• In a heated garage, your iron horse and in the cold is ready for use at 100%. You open the gate, sit in the cabin, turn the ignition key, and go.
• The roof and walls of the warm box protect it from any precipitation. A shovel is needed only to clear the way out of boxing.
• In addition, in the room you can always carry out any repair of equipment on your own, without contacting a car service center. Under comfortable conditions for any man, taking care of his iron horse is only a joy.

There is no single answer here, there are only a few nuances that should be taken into account without fail before making a warm floor in the garage:

• If you use the room for long-term storage of the car, without traveling on the road, for example, from autumn to spring, then it is not necessary to heat it in winter.
• If the machine is operated constantly in the daytime, and at night you drive it into a box, then the temperature in the garage in winter should not fall below 0 ° C. The optimal mark is + 5 ° C.

Important! Why exactly this meaning? The answer is pretty simple. If it is warm inside, the temperature reaches 15-20 ° C, and outside - frost, this will lead to condensation on the car. And high humidity is an ideal condition for the appearance of rust on the metal.

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Preparation for work

Many experts recommend thinking about the issue of how to make a heated floor in the garage, still in the process of construction. Thus, you will ease your task. Do-it-yourself installation of a heated floor in the garage raises many questions, since this part of the room:

• Must be strong and tough to withstand the weight of any car;
• Must not react with fuels and lubricants, oils and chemicals, the appearance of which in the garage is inevitable;
• It must be moisture resistant so that you can safely remove dirt that has crumbled from the wheels of the machine.

Most motorists prefer the simplest version of the floor device - this is a high-quality concrete screed. Doing it right on the ground is not recommended; the place needs to be well prepared. Only in this case, the garage floor will meet all of the above requirements:

• First, the soil of the future floor is removed to a depth of 30-35 cm to make room for a pillow - the base.
• Further, the soil is carefully compacted over the entire area, and the sand-gravel mixture is evenly distributed over the entire area. This layer should be about 8-10 centimeters.

Important! If the floors are planned to be insulated, then expanded clay is laid instead of gravel, which is also leveled.

• Next, they arrange waterproofing - it can be a plastic film or roofing material.

Important! Between each other, the sheets of the waterproofing must be connected tightly, so they are overlapped, which should be at least 20 centimeters. Waterproofing should go on the walls of the garage for 15-20 centimeters.

• A reinforcing mesh is laid on top of the waterproofing, which is fixed with brackets, lighthouses from reinforcement or special profiles are set on it.

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Floor insulation

Before deciding how to make a heated floor in the garage, it is worth not only preparing the foundation, but also conducting thermal insulation of the entire room. If the walls are thin and they have cracks, then such a garage will be difficult to heat up even to 15 degrees. The room is best insulated with simple and affordable insulation, which can be found in any hardware store. The main thing - do not save on materials and do not skip this step. Your costs - both temporary and financial, will pay off very quickly due to energy savings.

Do-it-yourself floor heating in the garage can be of two types:

• Water - is a closed system, for the creation of which metal-plastic pipes are most often used. On top of this building make a screed. The heat source in the room is a water heating boiler or the system can be connected to the heating of the house if the garage building adjoins it;
• Do-it-yourself electric underfloor heating in the garage is also a construction of heating elements that run across the entire area. From above, it is also poured and leveled with concrete mixture. The principle of heating is infrared or convection.

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Water floor

Do-it-yourself installation of a heated floor in a garage has several advantages. Let's look at them carefully:

• Such floor heating is low temperature and operates at a pressure of 2 atmospheres. All elements operate in a sparing mode, so a water system mounted in compliance with all norms and requirements will serve you for a period equal to the period between major repairs of the building, that is, at least 40 years.
• The do-it-yourself floor heating system in the garage works according to the following principle - the lower the room temperature, the more the surface gives off heat. Self-regulation is debugged in such a way that the same temperature is maintained in the room. This effect does not exclude temperature fluctuations, but each time when exposed from the outside, the room temperature will approach that set initially.

Important! The most difficult to install a water heated floor in the garage with your own hands is the design process. All components and pipe layouts must be carefully planned.Implementation of the plan does not take much time and can be done independently.

Another huge advantage of such a system, many experts consider energy savings, respectively - money. But at the same time, this option has its drawbacks:

• If using a water heated floor in the garage with your own hands you need to get a relatively low heating temperature, then for this you need to install a mixing unit with a pump. This will create a forced circulation of water flowing through the pipes.
• The installation of such a system in the neighborhood of a private house where people live can lead to a decrease in pressure in pipes supplying the communal welfare of residents.
• In the event of the breakdown of individual elements of a water heated floor in the garage, you will have to dismantle the entire structure with your own hands, and this is a very time-consuming process.
• Installing a water heated floor in any room is possible only with the permission of the responsible authorities, which must give their consent to use. It is forbidden to independently connect this type of heating without the necessary sanctions.

Scheme

How to make a heated floor in the garage - each car owner decides for himself, but there is a general scheme, following which you will achieve excellent results:

• Previously, you should draw up a heating scheme, calculate the number of pipes and accessories.
• If the garage is already in operation, you will first have to dismantle the old coating and pour a new screed on the slab for leveling.
• Heat-insulating material should be laid on the screed - usually a foam is taken with a thickness of at least 20 mm or foam.

Important! This material must be selected, paying particular attention to density, because it must withstand high loads.

• A damper tape must be stretched along the walls to compensate for thermal expansion.
• On a heat-insulating material lay a layer of thick construction polyethylene film on which the reinforcing mesh is placed.
• Lay a water pipe on top of the net, which is fastened with clamps to the net. The pipe is laid out with a snail or snake.

Important! To ensure the operation of the underfloor heating system in the garage with your own hands, even after some period of its non-use. To do this, install a valve to discharge the coolant. If the system will not be used for some time in the winter, this will avoid freezing the system.

• After installing the entire system, hydraulic tests must be performed. While the floor is not closed, at this stage all system defects are identified and immediately corrected.
• Next - pour a screed with a thickness of 10 to 15 cm with a reinforcing mesh that prevents cracking, depending on the tonnage of the machine that will be in the garage.

Important! Do-it-yourself 10-15 cm concrete is poured onto a heated underfloor floor in a garage under a 2-ton machine. Plasticizers and additives must be added to concrete to increase its strength.

• While the screed will dry out, and it will take at least a month, the underfloor heating in the garage should not be connected. To prevent the cracker from cracking, cover it with foil and water it twice a day for the first week.
• After the screeds have completely dried, the system can be started. For flooring, usually a bulk floor is used or the concrete floor is left uncoated.

Important! You can turn on the underfloor heating in the garage with your own hands at the first frost. The initial warm-up may take several days, after which the system will already maintain the required temperature. A large inertia of warm water floors can also serve a good role, even if for some reason the boiler cannot heat water for some time, the system will give off heat to the room for a long time.

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Electric floor

Car owners who have carefully studied the question of how to make a heated floor in a garage, opt for an electrical system. There are several reasons for this:

• For this type of heating, it is not necessary to supply pipes, draw up complex schemes and buy special equipment.
• Its entire structure consists of heating cables, which are located in a cement screed.
• Of the additional settings, only a thermostat is required, but it does not take up too much space. Its size corresponds to the size of the most conventional switch.
• The do-it-yourself electric underfloor heating system in the garage does not require special maintenance.
• Electrical systems also have a long lifespan of about 40 years.
• Such designs have a high degree of security, because they incorporate special heat sensors, and when overheated, the system automatically turns off.
• The advantages of electric underfloor heating also lie in the simplicity of their installation. You can install it yourself even without special tools.

Important! The disadvantages of this system are few - this is an increased energy consumption and a ban on installation in buildings with high humidity.

Device

Before you make a warm floor in the garage, you should understand its structure.

A hardware kit usually includes 2 items:

1. Control is carried out using a temperature controller. Manual control devices allow maintaining constant temperature at the same level, while programmable thermostats can change and select modes according to the set program.
2. The main element is the cable. Electricity passes through it and the room is heated. Since it is poured with cement mortar, the cable must withstand high physical and thermal loads.

Important! When choosing a cable for a do-it-yourself floor heating system in a garage, pay attention to its strength. If it is not high enough, it may cause a short circuit. And this threatens, at least - with repair, as a maximum - with the restoration of the entire garage after a fire.

Work order:

1. Before installing an electric heated floor in the garage with your own hands, calculate the length of the cable, taking into account the fact that it is usually laid with a snake.
2. At the next stage, do the strobes in the wall - to install the thermostat.
3. When making floor insulation, give preference to high-quality materials that are fireproof and have a long service life.
4. Lay the mounting tape and cable on top of this layer.
5. Next, install the temperature sensor for the underfloor in the garage with your own hands. Position the sensor wire across the cable lines to transmit data. At the initial stage, a tube is mounted for this wire.
6. When laying wires and cables, indent 5-7 cm from the walls. Also, do not lay wires close to heating systems.
7. Now route the cable to the thermostat. If the floor is two-core, then one end of the cable is mounted, if single-core, then two.
8. Connect the thermostat to complete the bulk of the work. To do this, attach three cables located in the tubes to the device. One of them is already connected - this is the floor cable.
9. Now connect the temperature sensor and cable from the switchboard. The correct connection diagram can be found on the thermostat cover.

After these works, you can begin to fill the surface with a cement-sand mixture. Then the floor must be left alone until the screed is completely dry. In this period, you can not use the system in any case - this can lead to a short circuit.

Useful Tips

When carrying out work on installing a warm floor in a garage with your own hands, you must follow the manufacturer's instructions. And during its operation it is necessary to adhere to safety rules:

• Do not subject the cable to deformation or mechanical impact;
• Do not make changes to the design of the thermostat;
• do not work when the power is on;
• Do not work with cable at temperatures below 0;
• ground the heating cable;
• do not screw in screws, do not drill holes into the enclosure area of ​​the heating section.

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Simple methods of insulation

It is also worth saying that there are several simplified options on the topic of how to make a warm floor in the garage. The easiest way is to lay boards of any thickness on a concrete floor without using a lag. But it is also worth considering other options for materials to protect from the cold. To get an excellent result, you should know their main properties:

• Expanded clay builders respect for its low cost, fire resistance and moisture resistance. For this type of floor insulation in the garage you will need to dig a pit. As a waterproofing with expanded clay, roofing material is most often used.
• Warming is often done with polystyrene foam. This material has a high level of thermal conductivity and excellent moisture resistance. Of the shortcomings, it is worth noting fragility.
• Creating a heated floor in the garage with your own hands is also possible with the help of foam. It is cheap, reliable, has a long service life. It is laid on a leveled surface and a layer of waterproofing.
• If you decide to use mineral wool, then you need to think about vapor barrier in advance, and make ventilation gaps in waterproofing.

Important! For floor insulation, this material is rarely used, rather, for roof insulation, because its cost is quite high.

• Slag, which is used to protect against cold, must be kept in the open air for at least two years before use, so that all toxic combustion products can erode.

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Stock footage

What material to choose for a warm floor in the garage with your own hands - it's up to you. The only thing that you need to pay attention to is environmental friendliness and fire resistance, as there is enough gas and vapor from gasoline and car chemistry in the garage. Well, then you will need the necessary materials and tools, schemes and a large margin of time. In most cases, the heating system is built into the floor, and the time of complete solidification of the screed is at least a month. Given that this surface will face heavy loads, these deadlines must be met so that the result of the work will please you for many years.