Insulating an older house - Warm fill????

joejoem

Hi,

Im thinking of insulating my house, its an older house built in the 50's. I was looking at doing http://www.insulation.irl.com/walls2.html this. Its a warmfill, basically they drill small holes in the walls then connect a hose to it and pump in the insulation. Has anyone any experience with this?

rooferPete

Hi,

So long as the walls are a proper cavity not 9" cavity blocks the system works and Coopers have been in the business a long time.

My one objection / concern that I did ask about for a customer but didn't get an answer (not Coopers) was based on an installation carried out on a terraced house.

There is supposed to be a divider installed between terraced or semi detached houses, this was not done on the job I was referring to, also there is a chart available with the Agrement Certificate showing the drilling pattern that must be adhered to.

Installed properly it is more than a good system, FWIW my advice is choose your contractor carefully.

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joejoem

Thanks Pete!

GreeBo

rooferPete wrote:

Hi,

So long as the walls are a proper cavity not 9" cavity blocks

What do you suggest for 9 inch cavity's on a ~15 year old semi-d?
Im about to put in double glazing which should help a great deal.
the attic has about 6inches of fibreglass and is also partially floored (usual chipboard attic flooring)
The external wall construction appears to be
9 inch cavity block
Battons with fibreglass between them
Plastic (damp proof?) sheeting
Plasterboard.

While running a telephone cable I accidently cut through the plastic layer, the wind coming thorugh is unreal, a real gale.
Methinks thats bad.

Thx!

rooferPete

Hi Greebo,

Unusual for a gale because you cut the vapour barrier, actually unusual for a vapor barrier on walls of that or even this era except timber frame.

I like the combined insulation and plaster board that can fixed using a plastic drive in fixing with a 50 mm head.

Unless your walls are badly plastered outside or their is a rising damp problem you shouldn't need the cavity created by the laths.

Kingspan have a nice system good quality and very good insulation values depending on the thickness you order.

The only problem is you will need to get the finished walls skimmed by a good plasterer, it may be overkill since your exising system sounds like they were doing a good job.

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GreeBo

rooferPete wrote:

Unusual for a gale because you cut the vapour barrier, actually unusual for a vapor barrier on walls of that or even this era except timber frame.

Talking to a neightbour it appears that there is an issue with wind/rain driving through the firstfloor roof (over the hall and sitting room, dunno what youd call it)
Apparently there have been leaks into the ceiling in some houses, I think the issue is that the houses are just on the Dub mountains and there is a large open space in front so the wind is very, very strong a lot of the time.

Come the summer Im going to have to start lifting tiles to see whats underneath, Ive been told that the upstairs floorboards are exposed causing the draughts into the cavit of the walls. :eek:

Those insulation solutions sound like Id be ripping the plasterboard from all my external walls, not fun!
Thought I guess if I removed the battons and use the same thickness of kingspan/plasterboard I wouldnt lose any house, but things like around the stairs etc would be a royal pain, no?

rooferPete

Hi Greebo,

I think it might be a good idea to find out exactly what is wrong, from what you have described there are a few possibilities one being the floor joists are sitting on the blocks behind the wall plate of the lean to roof on the front of the house.

The high winds could be getting in under the roof covering and entering the ceiling space between the floor joists, the age of the house would be borderline on the common use of joist hangers during construction.

Obviously I would say the roofs should not leak regardless of the location, the design should have taken the high winds into account.

I think you could be spending a lot of money and upsetting your home replacing the existing dry lining especially with what may be a long vent across the front of the house.
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joejoem

rooferPete wrote:

Hi,

So long as the walls are a proper cavity not 9" cavity blocks the system works and Coopers have been in the business a long time.

.

Hi Pete, I got this from the structural survey.

The external main walls are block with a concrete render. The construction is single leaf and as
such is prone to water penetration over time. There was no damp penetration noted internally.
There were no internal cracks noted. It should be noted that the house was wallpapered which
hides the majority of cracks. It should be noted that is a non-destructive survey. There were no
cracks noted externally.

Can yo0u tell from that if I can warm fill the house?

rooferPete

Hi joejem.

My reading of that report is :

Single leaf ? not a term I am used to so I will guess that the wall is a solid poured concrete or a solid concrete block maybe a 6" (150mm) there was a time when concrete blocks were made on site rare but it happened, or it could be a 4" solid on flat giving you a finished wall 9" thick.

I don't know your location but I would be inclined to go with option 1 or another just came to mind, solid brick wall that had problems with spalling brick and was plastered (render).

There is no mention of a cavity and the surveyor appears to believe the wall is solid by this reference :

"The construction is single leaf and as such is prone to water penetration over time"

The following would be a fairly standard line :

"There were no internal cracks noted. It should be noted that the house was wallpapered which hides the majority of cracks.

However if I was buying the house, based on those two lines I would have asked for more detail such as did he / she have any reason to believe or suspect that there may be internal cracks based on their findings from viewing the outside walls.

Don't worry, I and maybe a few in the trade might have asked but the vast majority of consumers would have taken it at face value especially if the lender was accepting it as a positive report.

Sorry for going the long way around to answering your question,

Warmfill and similar products can only be used on clear cavity walls, the older version was 2 x 4" solid blocks (on edge) with a 3" cavity between them, also known as 11" work.

If the external plaster is in sound condition, then your best option to insulate is with dry lining on the external walls.

I hope that is of some help to you.

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joejoem

That was great thanks