Foamit plays an important role in the refurbishment of ground floors in old buildings.
It allows floors to freely drain water away from the walls of a building, compliments breathable lime floor construction and imposes minimal weight on the ground substructure that supports a building through its foundations.
Breathable, insulated and limecrete floors have now become quite common in the UK and this web site includes a series of case studies which may help you decide on the best floor build up for your old building. It has long been recognised that in old buildings we should avoid pushing dampness in to walls from the ground by not using poor draining compacted fill, cement subbases and impermeable layers and membranes. Foamit allows the lowest section of the floor build up, the sub base, to drain freely as well as offering insulation within it. The finished result of one such build up is shown below.
The use of Foamit also ensures that extra load is not imposed on weak ground supporting old walls. In Suurtori makasiini a 16th century brick unheated outbuilding used foam glass as a light ground fill to prevent further settlement in the brick walls because very little extra load is imposed on the ground by the Foamit sub base. A brick floor was laid directly on top of the Foamit layer.
