Hello all!
It has been a long time since I've posted on HF, but I can't think of any group that I would rather ask my question to even though it's about sleeping more or less on the ground. And I'm not even talking about humans! My mother has a neighbor whose dog is getting older, has a bad back and his hind legs give out on him unexpectedly every now and then. He's the coolest dog, but his owners are busy. He's very anxious and when left alone in the house tears it apart. He was a mostly outside dog his whole life in the daytime and so they don't see another solution than to keep him outside during the day. My mother feels bad for him in extreme heat and extreme cold, now not even so extreme cold, and she has a standing offer to take him to her house when he would be suffering if left outside. My mother and her neighbors have a good relationship and they repay her for her kindness in a number of ways. So it's all good. BUT now that he has the aches and pains of an older man dog my mother thinks it's not fair that the warmest spot on his porch is a bench that's been covered with W-M blue closed-cell foam (yes, that was my idea) and he has to jump up to get on it. SO she wants to offer a pallet of sorts to them to set on their porch that he can just walk onto a cozy warm spot. She asked me to help and, of course, I readily agreed. I have the wood left over from another project anyway. We're thinking just a sheet of plywood with 2 layers of W-M Blue and then wood on 3 sides to create a bit of a barrier from the wind.
So here is my question: Which is warmer? having the whole pallet lifted a couple of inches from the ground so it's not directly touching the cold concrete or having it set directly on the porch? Both hypotheticals would have 2 layers of Blue and if raised off the ground the air underneath would not circulate -- it would have wood all the way around the bottom so theoretically it would be cold, but dead, air underneath. Or would it be mostly the same - either you're fighting the cold of the concrete or the cold of the air being kept cold by the concrete?
I know this is a long read. Thanks to anyone who replies.
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