Insulating Solid walls

[SimonJ]

Hi all

I am just about to buy a house that has solid brick walls. I will be having a DPC installed (probably injection?) but the surveyor said something about recommending I had the walls insulated, and mentioned dry lining. Is this the best way to go about it, or are there easier/better ways, and if dry lining is the way to go, how?

I am probably going to have to DIY it, and many other things, as finding the huge deposit necessary these days have left me pretty much skint - Expect more posts from me on here as I find other bits wrong with the house!

[Ash]

Does the house actually need the walls insulated ? Is it a prerequisite requirement of the mortgage (which I doubt) or a surveyors expert opinion that in order to reduce energy costs, reduce heat loss, etc the walls is may be desirable to have the walls insulated?. In otherwords it's just a suggestion. Or do you need to insulate the walls because of structural problems with the house?

Just out of curiosity why are you having the DPC installed? I presume it already has one? The reason I ask is that when we bought our 1900 house ( ... and I can hear the yawns from the regular contributors/readers that yet again I've mentioned I have a 1900 house ... ) it was a requirement of the mortgage that DPC to the rear of the property be injected. The problem was actually due to the house having settled and the concrete footpath around the house was higher then the DPC (due to the house settling) and damp was able to bridge the DPC ... as the footpaths were all been removed and re-laid I pointed this out and I never did have to have the DPC injected. Lowering the footpaths solved the problem ... obviously this may not be the answer in your case.

Ash

[SimonJ]

I've not got the surveyors report yet, just had a quick chat with him on the phone, the basic jist was that there were no structural problems, but it will be very expensive to heat, it is an end terrace so 3 walls out of the 4 are exposed.

Mine is a similar vintage, but it has no damp proof course at present as far as I am aware, I know a previous owner who confirmed that when he moved out in the 70's that the house had never had a DPC. Not sure whether the mortgage company will insist on a DPC, but obviously it is something I will be getting done anyway, and while I am about it I may as well do the insulation work.

[Ash]

That makes sense. Take a look at this guide ... it may help you with choosing how to insulate your walls

Ash

[SimonJ]

[SimonJ]

Oops, sorry didn't mean to repost here.

[meow2222]

very rarely needed

rarely effective

You can put insulation on the inside or outside. Outside means rendering over it, inside means replastering and losing a couple of inches.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

Disregard this idiot.

Extremely effective if needed.

Dry lining is probably the easiest if its solid brick.

Try and get 50mm celotex inside every outside wall.

[Dave-UK]

[meow2222]

Yeah, there's also the BRE tests where they stood all sorts of designs of walls in water for years, and none of them got rising damp. And the case where a dpc injection company injected masses of walls with nothing but water, and had no complaints. Theres lots of info on this topic out there.

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

A house of that era will normally have a slate damp proof course. It may have got buried by raising of ground levels. Also, there probably won't be a damp proof course under a hearth, as the heat from the fire keeps that dry, except you probably haven't had a fire in it for decades;-)

I wouldn't waste any money on damp treatment until you've been there for a while and seen what, if any, genuine damp issues you have. Rising damp is the most unlikely of the lot. Installing a DPC where you have damp which isn't actually rising damp will usually make it worse.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If they were using modern plasticised mortar and quality engineering bricks, they wouldn't.

If they had a 17th century brick an lime mortar, that would be a different story.,

Why don't you take it to the standards people, and tell them that every house with a DPC doesn't need one.

Why not earth your house up above DPC and revel in the dry interiors.

And the

And a lot of it is applied out of context or is plain lies.

If brickwork doesn't absorb water, how come frost spalls it?

How come it sucks mortar dry when you lay bricks?

How come you get efflorescence?

I am not saying that its the be all and end all, or that companies aren't cowboys, but that doesn't invalidate the whole concept.

Rising damp definitely occurs from wet ground to masonry, and probably extends 4-6" above the water table. Noticeably. Enough to rot timber in contact with it and blow plaster over it. I know, because I had it. vOn the wall that WASN't injected.

.

[meow2222]

they used all sorts of bricks and mortars, including lime. None suffered rising damp.

why would I get involved in that? wacky suggestion.

it might get damp. A dpc isnt going to make any difference to such situations

?

it does absorb water

_that_ may not, but theres enough information that does. You just dont like reading.

What you had is damp near ground level. Lots of houses have had this. To then claim that a large proportion of cases of damp near the ground are due to rising damp is a simple non-sequitor.

Why dont you go do some reading.

NT

[AJH]

Just leaving aside all the opinions you now have about rising damp, two good reasons to insulate exterior walls such as yours is to 1) reduce cold bridging which will mean spending more on heating, and 2) to reduce or prevent condensation which can be a major cause of damp, probably more so than rising damp.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

This Victorian pile is built of pretty porous London stocks and lime mortar - and has no damp proof course. When I bought it many years ago the BS insisted on a woodwork and damp warrenty - so I got quotes from several firms. All but one wanted to install a chemical damp course and re-plaster the external walls up to a height of 1 meter or so in a waterproof render - which would have meant removing the beautiful 14" skirting boards, and they would never have gone back correctly. The decoration in the house was all old, and wallpaper everywhere. Non of which was showing any damp - or loose. And I bought the house in the early spring after a long wet winter. No central heating in the house either. So I concluded if it had survived ok without a damp course for the best part of 100 years, why did it suddenly need it?

The reason there was no damp showing was simple. The suspended wood floor was some three courses above ground level, and there was the further 3 courses or so not plastered because of the skirting. Good air circulation in the cellar too. So any water penetration to the bricks simply dried out afterwards. If you add a waterproof render to the inside of the wall as was the practice then, the bricks can't dry out so easily.

There were a couple of minor wet rot problems where joists went into the walls sat on wood plates which were easily fixed.

[Tim S]

Rob coughed up some electrons that declared:

What are the other 350 credits about then?

I dread the response...

When my Mum did her diploma in catering management at Battersea Poly, they had the students undertake every job themselves that they might be expected to manage others doing in the future, eg cleaning the loos.

One of the students discovered the hard way that acidic cleaners and marble tiles don't go well togther.

By strange coincidence, Battersea Poly closed and re-opened as Surrey University, and I worked for a while in what was the same department by a slightly different name (one or two of the Battersea people were still around).

Nothing like that now. They still get to do actual cooking and more "restauranty" things, but no cleaning the bogs or mundane stuff that I'm aware of.

I've seen far too many fraction of a million projects with a bunch of admin idiots running the show who won't listen to the people who have to actually make it work. Usually ends up with the customer side tech folk dealing directly with the contractors (who also want to leave something that works) on the quiet to sort out various lack of thought and outright lunacy.

[Rob]

:-) - policy, strategy, design, finance, management, development, bit of economics/politics/sociology (30-odd credits), dissertation (now called a project, 40 credits), research methods, marketing, professional practice, with a year placement. In fairness it's preparation for a job that's always had an identity problem, swinging between social worker and property manager. At the moment it's more a regulated portfolio manager type of course. But it is one of the few courses that does actually lead to a decent job.

Quite right.

Social housing (20% of all UK housing, about 5 million homes) has suffered some gross mismanagement. Ironically* (well, not ironically in my view) most has happened in the past 25 years with the introduction of managerialism and market pressures. Created a lot of jobs though ;-)

Rob

*I gather quite a few on this NG are believers of market over state.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Outside also means the building's thermal mass is indoors. IME, having a large thermal mass inside the insulation layer leads to a much more comfortable building environment, including staying cooler in summer. Most modern highly insulated buildings have virtually no thermal mass, which is why they're so uncomfortable in hot summers, when there's nothing to stop their temperatures rocketing up.

Unfortunately putting it on the outside is usually impractical.

[Timothy Murphy]

I'm very interested in this at the moment, as the Irish government (which has some Green Party ministers in it) has set out a scheme of insulation grants which includes wall-insulation. In fact due to a bizarre bureaucratic quirk, you more or less have to do treat the walls to get the grant, which also covers attic insulation, but not by itself.

I own an early victorian cottage. A supposed expert told me some time ago that about 35% of the heat is lost through the walls, and only 15% through the ceiling. He didn't do any kind of measurement; this was supposedly the general situation. I wasn't really convinced, but now am thinking of getting some kind of wall insulation. I'm a little worried that this might disimprove the look of the interior, which was very nicely finished by a trawler-owner many years ago for his mistress.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

Can you enlarge on any vapour barrier issue with regard to external insulation?

My Architect has shown about 75mm of Celotex inside a 220mm single block wall (new build). When I whinged about wall fixing issues he said *stick it on the outside then*.

In fact, this would suit me very well as the external finish is feather edge board on battens. Provided I can find long enough batten fixings, of course.

Does this method give rise to other problems?

regards

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