Insulating a house having solid walls

n semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-papere d.

be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I aim t o use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but not consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

what's this "proprietary" adhesive?

why not hack off the plaster back to brick/stone and do it properly? less l ost space or more room for thicker insulation.

Jim K

n semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-papere d.

be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I aim t o use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but not consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

Cement faced insulation gives you more insulation value. Use PIR rather tha n polystyrene, more insulating & safer.

NT

On Saturday 12 October 2013 10:51 snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Good idea - even a very small amount of insulation to the inside surface will make a large difference to a solid (non cavity) brick wall - mostly in terms of comfort (lack of cold air falling off the walls) and condensation.

Of course, it cannot be as good as 50mm in a cavity in terms of reducing heating bills, but it is certainly worth giving thought to.

Personally I would screw the board on - foam fitting alone for a heavy board is tricky.

The other option is "dot n dab" which grabs quicker IME and is easier to work with.

n semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-papere d.

be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I aim t o use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but not consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

Forgot to mention there are a lot of Victorian house owners convinced they have solid walls, when many have cavities. Have you drilled to check?

NT

don't tell building control, because they will tell you that your new insulation is not up to modern standards.

The law of unintended consequences applies here. If you do work, it has to be up to modern standards. If you don't do any work, they are not bothered.

making things better is not good enough.

however leaving all that aside, even 3mm of cork will make a huge difference on a sold brick wall. oner inch of celotex is a massive difference.

ian semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-pape red.

n be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I aim to use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but n ot consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

han polystyrene, more insulating & safer.

"Cement faced insulation" used inside a victorian semi? show/tell me more.. ...

Jim K

Much depends on your BCO IME. Ours have always been pragmatic - if you are making it better than before, they don't complain.

I had thought that the o/p's approach of adding to an existing plastered wall, without modifying the base, would keep him clear of the regs but a quick look shows that simply adding insulation is treated the same as total removal and replacement which I think is unfortunate.

Given that, I think it would be wise to opaque the windows before working and keep a low profile, just in case. For a simple change as intended, it's not something I would want the bureaucracy of building control involved in.

te:

orian semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-pa pered.

can be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I a im to use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but not consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

er than polystyrene, more insulating & safer.

Marmox etc. You can use google.

On Saturday 12 October 2013 18:26 snipped-for-privacy@care2.com wrote in uk.d-i-y:

MArmos is good (I have used it) - overkill for a dry wall though[1] - and it is polystyrene foam (not expanded polystyrene) - and it's not PIR (like celotex).

Insulating comes under the "changing a thermal element" rules. So for example, even re-plastering more than a certain percentage of a wall would trigger then need to upgrade the thermal performance to modern standards.

(probably little known, and even less observed I am sure!)

Isn't PIR a lot more effective than polystyrene balls or blown fibre as used in cavities ?

I used foam and a few screw fixings to hold things in place (at the top).

Definitely grabs quicker but bear in mind the foam itself is a much better insulator than plasterboard adhesive.

Simon.

n semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-papere d.

be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I aim t o use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but not consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

Great discussion. Thanks for the tips. What a useful group this is.

Chris

ian semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-pape red.

n be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I aim to use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but n ot consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

y have solid walls, when many have cavities. Have you drilled to check?

or look for brick ends visible on the outside. "No brick end"s = cavity wall.

Robert

te:

orian semi. The walls are plastered (not the original plaster), and wall-pa pered.

can be fixed by a proprietary adhesive. I would remove the wall paper. I a im to use 1-inch board, being the minimum that would make a difference, but not consuming too much space on e.g. the stairwell.

hey have solid walls, when many have cavities. Have you drilled to check?

Most of the time, yes, but there were some cheapskate Victorian builders wh o built what was effectively a cavity wall with zero thickness cavity (you could actually get short wall ties specially for this). The suggestion I saw was that this would make the expensive facing bricks g o further, plus you got more area of outside wall from your top craftsmen - the inside part would of course be constructed out of cheap common bricks by less highly paid men... If you can measure the thickness of the wall, that will often tell you whet her there's a cavity without the need to drill.

Well, not always. Visible bricks ends also means either. Victorians were very into playing around with brick bonds.

NT

There are some new builds round here in a conservation area when they look like traditional 9" non cavity Flemish bond from the outside - but they are in fact cavity with full infill insulation put in at build time.

Checkout the brickwork on Sainsbury's using streetview

Presumably they had to cut every other brick!

One in three if they're careful enough...

It may well be a 9 inch wall with a cavity as its quite tall for a normal wall. Does it have a steel frame to support it?