Insulating a solid wall house on a budget, my (slow) progress.

[Ian Stirling]

Alas, I'm not as fit as I might be, but it's going well, albeit slowly.

existing walls are pegs hammered into crevices in the

50-60cm stone/brick walls, which carry battens (horizontal and vertical to which the plasterboard is affixed.

So, I basically ripped out the existing plasterboard, preserving the old battening, and pulled off all the pegs. This was the easy bit.

Then drill lots of holes in the wall, 38mm with a diamond core bit - worked very well, into which are cemented tightly fitting (hammer in) treated wooden pegs. (notch all the ends of the pegs so they adhere well).

Put up thin battens vertically on the walls (no more nails clone in my case) to keep the insulation off the wall. Staple over tightly stretched plastic over these. (not a vapour barrier due to the holes over the pegs).

Now, press fibreglass over the pegs - I thought I would have to clamp it at the top, but in practice this wasn't the case, it's easily stiff enough.

Attach new battens to the ceiling, and floor, and reattach the old battening, screwing it on to all the pegs.

Affix vapour barrier plasterboard, and paint.

There is plenty of air circulation behind the insulation that's been put on, it's not stagnant, which was a fear.

[fred]

In article , Ian Stirling writes

Interesting stuff, in this cold weather I have noticed (pointedly) that my lounge (currently under refurb) has 2 cold external walls (lath & plaster gapped over 18" solid) plus a large 5 sided oriel. It is making me think strongly about ripping off the L&P and replacing it with a similar framework to your own with an inch of celotex* and 12mm plasterboard.

The only thing I might have done differently was to use stainless studding instead of wooden plugs; smaller holes, less epoxy goop, never ever rottiness and last minute adjustability before cutting off the excess stud.

Thanks for the inspiration.

• No room for any more I'm afraid as I need to maintain an air gap at the back and match up to decorative cornicing on the inside.

[visionset]

I take it you're certain there can't be a moisture/wood pin problem? Was this approach to avoid the expense of kingspan type stuff?

[Ian Stirling]

Consider dot and dabbing the celotex to the solid, then doing the same with the plasterboard, to lose the waste of space with the battening.

Wooden plugs have the advantage that A) They are pretty insulating B) Cheeep! - some 6p/hole. C) Cement is lots cheaper than epoxy.

And they can be adjustable easily

The existing pegs have lasted some 30 years without problems, and were untreated.

I figure that if the wall is wet, it's a fault, and needs fixing.

I'm going to put in the occasional electrode to monitor dampness.

[Ian Stirling]

Basically, yes. It's 100 square metres of walls, so it'd be some 500 quid more :(

[fred]

That would need a change in programmed thinking, I have a general distrust of dot and dab but I'll certainly look at it when (if :-) the lath comes off. I like the fact that the battened structure (albeit lightweight) is solidly fixed to the wall so I'd be happy to hang shelves off the structure once plasterboarded. Previous investigations have also shown the inner faces of the wall to be a bit wavy so pegging out might save on gallons of dab at the deep points but the lack of thermal bridges from battens is attractive.

Good points, particularly the insulating behaviour, I must look at the price of glass filled plastic studding. I also misthought the goop was epoxy and not mortar but it must have taken you a while to take out all those cores, all I'd need would be my cheapie SDS.

Hmmn, possibly ;-)

Good points again, my outer skin is close fitting sandstone blocks so I don't expect much in the way of damp penetration.

Please keep the updates coming.