The aim of this blog is to show the way I went around insulating my Cornish
house using internal insulation methods. I have tried using low cost
materials that should stand the test of time.
Let’s have a look and see where I started from.
The following are some pictures of the first of two bedrooms during the
removal of the original plaster work. I removed what was on the walls as
the quality of the several layers of aged plaster was not good and not holding
up. Further to this, the plaster was thick, very thick 70mm in
places. With internal insulation you want to avoid losing as much space
as possible and so removal was a logical idea.
Here is a picture of one of the three walls back to the
stone, this wall is the end gable wall, and the house is an end of terrace.
This wall has the chimney in it and as can be seen from the picture,
there is a small original fire place there.
The wall was then primed with PVA render bond using an air compressor.
I did this as the house is of a cob construction and produces a lot of dust as
the cob dries and loosens.
The following pictures show the partition wall between my house and next
doors. The old lath and plaster was removed and the polystyrene that was
installed by next door was also removed. Polystyrene is the wrong
material to put in the wall to reduce noise and I installed some noise
reducing, high density Rock Wall insulation and used Sound Block plaster board
to help reduce noise further.
I also installed 35mm Celotex type insulation to help reduce heat loss to
next door but also to produce a flat surface that the plaster board could be
fitted to. The original partition wall was all over the place.
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Now that all the prep work has been done its time to put up some steel partition
stud work. I chose metal partition stud work as it is cheaper and will
not twist or warp over time if, for what ever reason, the house has a penetrating
damp issue in the future.
The stud work consists of a track and stud, the track was screwed up into
the ceiling timbers and into the floorboards. The stud partition simply
clips into the track and is screwed into the track using dry wall screws.
Where the stud sits away from the wall packers are needed to
support the stud work from bending into the wall when lent on. This can
be done using off cuts of stud work or by bending plumbing strapping to the necessary
shape.
Insulation time.
Now the point of all this work is to get some insulation
into the walls. I have done this using 65mm King Span seconds from
Seconds and Co sized
at just over 600mm x 1200mm these insulation panels are easy to handle and fit.
Fitting the insulation was done by cutting slits into the
insulation using a small circular saw. This allowed the insulation to be
slotted into the stud work adding strength and removing the thermal bridge that
the metal stud work would otherwise offer.
This work progressed until the whole wall was insulated.
The wall was then covered in plastic to make a barrier to
air movement and to stop as much as possible of any moisture that may make its
way through over time if again there is an issue with penetrating damp in the
future.
Once the boarding out was done, joint tape was installed and the room and stairwell was plastered.
Bit of paint, wall paper and carpet and the room is almost done, door frame, light, sockets, window seat and stairwell lid all need to be completed but happy.
