Strip dormer walls or not? Winter cometh...

I'm right into the major mess stage with the old Bungalow. It would make sense to rip out the plasterboard and crappy glass wool that's full of mouse crap and corpses, and better to do it now and get it over and done.

Some (30% at least) has to come out so I can get access to run cables and pipes anyway. Ultimately it should all come out so I can check the roof timbers and reinsulate to a better standard (this dormer isn't freezing but it does bleed heat).

If I do it now, it will have to run for two winters uninsulated as that's a phase 2 job.

I could mitigate by dropping 4" of insulation under the floor (like bagged glass wool or sheeps wool or something else that's not totally offensive to my lungs).

4" would be a useful long term acoustic barrier, keep a little heat in downstairs and end up below my cables (clipped to side of joists) so I don't have to consider silly amounts of derating.

What would you do?

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S
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Is anyone going to be living in the dormer during the wait? If not, then I would go with the insulate the floor option. You will just have to cope with it being 'kin freezing when you need to work in that space.

The other option may be to get some rigid PIR insulation panels that you could cut roughly to shape and just push against the sides when you are not actually working on the space. That would give effective enough insulation short term if you don't mind it looking like you are living inside a tin foil box!

Reply to
John Rumm

Rip it out & change Dormer insulation to phase 1?

Reply to
Phil

Phil coughed up some electrons that declared:

Hi Phil,

Unfortunately I can't, although it would be an ideal plan. The Phase 1 schedule is tight (need to have ground floor done and dusted by Sept 2009).

There's going to be complications with how to maintain airflow above the insulation, which I may need to take paid advice on, unless the BCO is willing to stick his neck out with an opinion. It really needs to be done together with new soffits with ventilation strips (the current ones have none) so I can see it taking quite a lot of research and fiddling around to get it right.

It's all to do with having 2 dormers right upto nearly the ridge height on a full hipped roof - no obvious way to maintain a breathing airflow above celotex other than about 64 vent tiles( at 20 quid each!). There's bound to be a more sane solution, but it's not one that is likely to be in, say, a Celotex or Kingspan application guide.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

One obvious one that springs to mind if you are planning on stripping any of the roof, is to replace the under tile felt with a breathable one. Failing that, a ventilated ridgewould probably cost far less than vent tiles (although 64 sounds like rather alot - one per rafter space ought to be adequate). You can also get a fair amount of ridge ventilation just by cutting away 6" of felt close to the top (assuming you have some soffit vents).

Reply to
John Rumm

John Rumm coughed up some electrons that declared:

Hi John,

No - it's pegged as "uninhabitable" for Phase 1. Half the floor will be missing too.

That's OK - I only have to watch the tanks, but I expect enough heat will leak up from below to keep them happy, and I can chuck something round them temporarily.

That's not a bad idea. I need the celotex anyway assuming I go for this, rather than more wool to a greater thickness ( see other post regarding ventilation and anti-condensation measures). I could screw it on across the rafters loosely in whole sheets for the mostpart, then rescue it to cut and fit later.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

John Rumm coughed up some electrons that declared:

Aye - If I were relaying the roof, that's exactly what I would do.

But the roof seems in generally good order and the felt looks like bitumanised cloth of some sort (black with crisscross stringy bits)

I might ask the builders how much a roof relay would cost - it would be a useful metric to compare the economics of other solutions against. Have to watch it though - this is how budgets go wildly out of control ;->

That is one per rafter space. I must get some pictures of the roof on the web - needs to be seen to be believed! The problem with the ridge vent idea is that I don't have any sort of apex under the ridge - dormer roofs are flat and cut straight in like this:

Side profile:

==========^=========== | / \ | | / \ | | / \ | | / \ | / \ / \

---------------------------

Do you see the problem?

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

Use scraps of ply or something as large washers - stops the screws pulling through (as I discovered attempting to line the underside of my workshop roof last week!)

Reply to
John Rumm

Indeed...

Could you get away with raising the ridge tile half an inch? i.e. lift of the capping tiles, insert suitable angled vents - something like a L shaped weep vent would do - and then bed the ridge tiles back on?

Failing that, people like Ashphaltic to a dry ridge system that you can use for fixing ridges without the need for bedding in mortar, I have a feeling they have one that includes a vent as well.

Reply to
John Rumm

There's one in the Screwfix catalogue that provides a 5mm ventilation space along both sides of the ridge. About the cost of 3 ventilation tiles.

Reply to
<me9

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