Just about to start insulating my single-skin brick shed with Celotex and have got a couple of questions:
The Celotex will be fitted to the wall by fixing battens over the Celotex and then fixed to the wall. What is the best way to attach the battens to the wall? Should I use screws or masonry nails? If using screws, I need to put rawl plugs into the brick. What's the best and quickest way to do this? If I pre-drill all the holes in the brickwork, how can I be sure to line up the batten with the holes.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Am a total newbie to this kind of thing.
Don't bother with nails. You'll probably end up just ejecting the brick from the wall, assuming the brick even survives.
SDS drill with suitable bit.
Predrill holes in all the battens first. Then put against the wall in their final positions. Using a old smaller bit, drill through one of your predrilled holes (above half way up the batten) into the brick to make a mark. Remove batten. Drill and plug hole. Attach batten to hole using screw. Use spirit level to make batten upright. Use old bit again to drill through each predrilled hole. Remove batten again. Drill and plug each hole. Reattach batten using screws. If you've got a steady hand or a helper, you can skip out the steps of attaching by one screw to make the other punch marks, but you risk misaligning the holes.
I think that a lot depends on what you want to use the shed for and whether you want to fix things to the battens or to clad it in ply or something.
If you don't really need to fix anything to it, then you might as well skip the screws and simply stick the cladding to the wall with Gripfill. You could then stick a thin ply to the front if you want to protect it slightly.
If you want something slightly more substantial, then you could do as you are suggesting. Simply use a long masonry drill and drill through the Celotex into the wall. You can then remove the sheet and insert the plugs. Replace the sheet and carefully locate the screws through the battens and the sheet. The problem with this method is that it won't support very much if you are trying to do that because the Celotex will tend to crush if you overtighten the fixings and in any case mechanically speaking you will have the battens effectively stood off from the wall on screws by the thickness of the Celotex - it won't give any support. Therefore it is not going to be a good method if you are looking to fit heavy shelves.
I insulated my single brick garage using Celotex by first making stud framing in 75x50mm timber. The rectangular sections produced were bolted to the floor using Rawlbolts and to the joists using carriage screws. The rear face of the timber was spaced off from the wall by about 25mm. The Celotex was cut and friction fitted into the frames and then the joints taped with foil tape that they supply. Finally, I clad the framing with 18mm ply. Having the timber framing spaced off from the wall prevents cold bridging from the wall (although it does allow some with the floor). An alternative would have been to bolt the timbers directly to the wall but this would have bridged the insulation - not necessarily that big a deal in a shed, although you wouldn't do it in a dwelling. The cladding means that I can fit light to medium weight things anywere on the walls with no hassle and for heavier things I have very substantial studs at 600mm intervals.
For the roof I didn't need to fix anything to it, so I used long drywall screws with large washers to fix the Celotex to the rafters.
If you want to put plaster board over the celotex, then you could first fix uprights to the wall, fill between with celotex, then plasterboard over the whole lot. This would give you some solid bits to fix things to. It is also possible to get plasterboard already fixed to celotex.
There are some nice "knock-in" fastners from Rawlplug et al. Just drill through the batten, into the wall and then NAIL the batten on. The "nail" is a screw like thingy which can be tightened further once it is on the wall. Very quick and also very strong.
Forget the lot use thermoboard, which is plasterboard with 30/40/50 mm insulation bonded. £17 an 8x4 sheet fix with drywall adhesive.£4.75 a 25kg bag. Bingo finish in one. Standard requirement on newbuild exterior walls.
For a shed, though, it might be more appropriate to use plywood instead of (or in addition to) plasterboard, as it is much easier to fix shelving and racking to.
It's probably a good idea. As a general principle, putting wood in a potentially damp and unventilated space is not a good plan. Because of the construction of my garage, I was able to incorporate ventilation quite easily. The overhang of the roof provides quite generous horizontal soffits under the eaves. The roof uses trussed frames similar to house construction. I fitted Celotex to the inner surface of the rafters - I could have fitted some between and some on top, but it was enough of a PITA to fit the stuff up there anyway that I didn't mind losing about 50mm of depth up there. This created a space behind the depth of the rafters to ventilate the them. I then boarded on top of the joists to form a storage area but only up to the roof Celotex. The wall framing was arranged so that there was an air gap at the top meeting the gap behind the roof Celotex. I then fitted soffit vents into the soffits between each pair of rafters on both sides of the (apex) roof. This gives a ventilated space common behind roof and walls.
I did a simple test using smoke matches held against holes cut in the final wall on a mildly windy day. It was blown in and out, so I think that the ventilation is effective enough.
An alternative would be to chop an air brick into the wall, I suppose.
For belt and braces, I used pressure treated timber for the framing as well. A good and cheap source of this is a timber mill that makes fencing materials, although it can be obtained at a normal merchant.
No. The Celotex is fitted flush with the front surface of the framing. I then taped it using the metalised tape, to cover the joins from sheet to sheet and to the battens. In a few places where there were small holes and gaps as a result of the garage construction, I used foam filler.
I then fitted the ply to the framing using drywall screws and painted it.
I debated the idea. The problem for me is that the height from floor to joists is only about 2400mm and I didn't want to lose any of that. Also, I will want to move heavy things in and out on occasions so I don't really want a step at the front.
I had done the heat loss calculations for the building and the floor was the least of the losses. Now of course it's the most, but not substantial.
I use brown plugs with 5mm screws going at least 50mm into the wall, avoiding mortar lines. Every 18 inches sounds fine. I usually put 5 or 6 in spread evenly, ensuring they are approximately in the middle of a brick/block, to avoid damage.
The bricks used to build this shed must be extra tough because I'm blunting drill bit after drill bit. They look like normal house bricks but the dust is grey (not the usual pinky colour). I didnt expect them to be so tough!
My mate says I should just drill into the pug joints. Is this OK?
I turned a pre-fab 20' x 10' concrete garage into a GP workshop and wanted to line the inside with something warm, strong and easy to fix things to. The 'problem' was the inside of the garage was very 'paneled' with a 1 1/2" 'dish' in the panels.
I cut up a load 4 x 2 (sawn) into 6" long blocks and 'Gripfilled' them to the inside walls at 3 heights (top. middle and bottom) and 2' spacing. I then lined the whole lot with bubble pack and used ally 'H' section strips to lock 12m WBP (is it?) ply panels together at the joints and screwed to the wooden blocks.
The whole lot was painted with some light grey floor paint and (second hand) Spur uprights (full height) fitted at 2' intervals around all the walls (picking up on the glued blocks). This means I can put shelves pretty well anywhere and the ply is strong enough for brackets or small draw units in between.
The steel trussed, corrugated cement fibre, ridge type roof is a bit of a low pitch for any real 'loft' storage. I've not done anything to that yet but I might fabricate some taller trusses and re-roof it at some time soon? I think I can go up to 3m high without needing planning permission (the workshop is 8' 6" at the eaves). I was also considering some of that triple walled polycarbonate sheet to give me more light or maybe an odd corrugated clear H/D panel if I stick with that style?
The std 8' square up-and-over door was not much fun (especially in the winter) so I fabricated a triple traditional door set (out of 50 x 25 x 1.5 mm steel box tube clad in steel sheet) to give a single 1/3 rd wide 6' 6" high personal door and the other 2/3 rds are a sort of bi-fold allowing the whole thing to open up if needed.
It all took quite a while to do but makes for a great hidy hole for 'fettling' stuff ;-)
[T] I'm not sure what it stands for but it's a 'system'.
A std 'hammer' drill works by having a searies of 'ramps' on one of the drive gears causing the bit to move backward and forward slightly as it goes round. They generally have a standard or hand chucks.
An SDS 'tool' (as they don't just drill) use a different method to create the percussion and the q/r chuck takes a range of 'bits' including chisels etc and could be thought of as similar to a tiny Kango? They can be used as a std rotary drill, drill with hammer or just the hammer action (bit not rotating) . The bits have flutes on them where they go into the chuck so they don't slip.
I think there are different std's (I'm new to all this myself) eg you can get SDS and SDS II etc?
They range in price from +AKM-29 to hundreds for something that will work all day (if you can lift one all day that is!).
Great for getting ceramic tiles of the wall I'm told?
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