Chalet style house insulation.

[Jimk]

Harry Bloomfield, Esq. [e-mail]> Wrote in message:

Knock it down & start again.

[Jimk]

Harry Bloomfield, Esq. [e-mail]> Wrote in message:

Line the fitted furniture with insulation.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

A friend has a 1960's chalet style semi-house, where the first floor bedrooms are always cold. Gutters are at ground floor ceiling height. End brick wall goes up to roof and is CWI. Upper floor windows are set in the roof slope and have no internal cills. There is CWI at front and rear, up to roof gutter/roof level.

There is no insulation at front, or rear, between plasterboard wall and angle of tiled roof, which makes the place drafty, cold and expensive to heat.

Upper floor is smaller than the ground floor, so there is a triangle of space below the windows, maybe with a 2 or 3 foot base.

He cannot add insulation inside plasterboard walls, because of built in furniture. What is the usual method of insulating such spaces please?

I have suggested the only way is to gain access via tile removal and fix thick insulation between timber frame to rear of plasterboard. Or maybe a spray on insulation foam added to rear of pasterboard.

Enquiries with insulation specialists have produced little interest.

[Brian Reay]

One of our previous houses had been extended like that. Fortunately, there was a crawl space, accessible via a hatch in the garage, and I was able to gain access. I lined it with foil and insulation. It made quite a difference.

If there is a similar space, it may be worth making an access somewhere is can't be seen.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Other solutions than demolition?

[The Natural Philosopher]

you need to work out which is worse: removing interior fittings and stripping plasterboard or removing the roof. i can't see any other solution

[Tricky Dicky]

You also need to consider a vapour barrier which has to on the warm side of the insulation. Our last house had two bay windows one stacked on the other, from the outside between them they had slate outer skin behind which was some sarking and just plasterboard nailed on the vertical supports on the inside. It was bloody cold in the bedroom, I removed the PB added to the thickness of supporting stud work before filling the spaces with paper lined rock wool. The paper lining extended sideways of the width of the rock wool allowing it to be nailed to the studs to stop it sliding down, these days you would probably use batts. The whole lot was covered with a PVC vapour barrier before reattaching the PB. As far as I was aware I never had any damp issues and it was an awful lot warmer.

I suppose you could simply add studs without removing the PB, fill the spaces with batts or celutex, add a vapour barrier and re-plasterboard.

Richard

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Spray on insulation seems an ideal way to promote timber rot.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Reay wrote on 10/03/2020 :

He says not, but it might be worth his making some access to add insulation.

It's not an extension, it is the originally built. I'm surprised that in the 1960's this was an acceptable way to build homes. He says his was one of the first, later ones of the same design had to have insulation added.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Tricky Dicky explained :

I suggested that, but he has spent a small fortune on fitted furniture along the walls and up to the walls.

[Another Dave]

I bought a house like this in 1963. It had what was called "background" central heating powered by a Baxi coal-fired back boiler. I loved the place. We were younger and tougher then.

Anothe Dave

[Brian Reay]

Perhaps extension was incorrect, more like modified in the 60s style. The upper floor, which is of interest here, was changed, as was the (1930s) ground floor. When finished, it looked 1960s.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

He did not want to remove fitted furniture, I think he may need to rethink that a bit. There are some Dutch style houses around here with similar issues. Built in 1939, and are single brick walls as well, like my terraced one is, and to be honest I'd need to do a heck of a lot to make insulation better here too, but at least I don't have roof pretending to be walls! Brian

[Andrew]

'New' houses built near me in 2010 just had inch thick batts of expanded polystyrene (the white stuff) just chicked inside the cavity. No attempt to clamp it firmly to the inner leaf, so air movement each side of the 'insulation' would have rendered it ineffective.

1960's buildings need to be bought cheap (in poor condition) so that remedial work (like pulling down upstairs celings of chalet houses and fitting tightly fitting celotex with gaps sealed with foaming adhesive between rafters) can be done as part of the renovation.`

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

This is called painting oneself into a comer. He should have asked the insulation question first. I'd have thought that rather obvious in your description of the build. Seems an odd property to buy, unless it was really dirt cheap. Of course a lot of people have lived in such houses for years and its only as fuel costs increase the folly of the design becomes apparent. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

I wondered is there anything that looks like tiles that has better insulation properties that might be able to be fitted and the tiles flogged on to somebody needing vintage, well not very vintage I suppose, times? Brian

[Theo]

We've just bought a place like that. There's fibreglass insulation between the ceiling joists of the ground floor, and the vertical walls of the first floor are backed with fibreglass batts too. I'm not sure what the state of the upper roof is like, but we'll find out next time we have to replace the flat roof on the dormer. There are hatches to access the spaces.

I'm pondering putting some insulation between the rafter (with a suitable air gap from the tiles) to add a second layer (partly to keep heat out), but will probably want to see how it works over the seasons first.

Theo

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff (Sofa 2) formulated the question :

and they were much younger and less bothered by the cold.

He appreciates that had he done something about it long ago, it would have easily paid for itself over the years in comfort and fuel saving.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff (Sofa 2) presented the following explanation :

Air/wind would easily flow between the tiles.

[Tim Lamb]

I have been *doing up* a 1995 chalet bungalow over the last 2 years (not full time:-) There should be a small *loft* area over the upstairs rooms which gives access to the space between the rafters and the plasterboard. Building control like at least a 2" air gap between the under tile felt and the top of any insulation but I managed to get 150mm slabs of Rockwool to slide down the slots. As others have said, there needs to be a vapour barrier on the warm side. Our extension was *shell only* so I was able to fit the insulation before stapling up the membrane and fitting the plasterboard. Skimming the whole of our upstairs cost £800 so stripping out and re-fitting may not be hugely expensive. Cutting Rockwool was done using a handsaw with the teeth ground off and a sharp edge maintained with a coarse grit stone (garden sickle job).