Home insulation advice please

trackerman

Hi,
My home is about 10 years old, build with 9" cavity block and dry lined with 2" of insulation on the inside with battons covered by plasterboard,fairly common construction in the Dublin area.
Note, it is not a cavity wall, i.e. a sandwitch of two bricks with an air space between.

I think it would have been ok only for the fact that the greedy builders neglected to properly install the insulation, I have some rooms that have great big mildew patches in the corner and these rooms are freezing in winter. Whereas other rooms seem ok.

We have a playroom that has an ESB & GAS meter box on the outside wall, this room is particularly cold, the kids can't use it at all.
There is a very noticeable flow of cold air from the wall (and sockets) near the gas/esb box. This room was once a garage but was converted some years ago. I suspect the insulation neat the gas/esb box useless and the exterior wall has been compromised by the esb/gas box.

The playroom also has an external roof section (about 4 foot out from the house) and this also seems to be a source of cold air, the walls and roof surfaces are always colder to touch than other rooms.

I really want to resolve these issues, the heating is on constantly just to compensate and it's costing a fortune.

What are my options here please?

Can I get the walls injected with foam?
Or should I tare down the plasterboard and install a higher standard insulation?
And should I fill the external roof section of the playroom with fiber insulation?

Thanks in advance.

10-10-20

I think that filling the cavity is the way to go here.
Also look at breaking into the roof space above the play-room to install the recommended 300mm of insulation.
Do you have any downlighters installed?

trackerman

10-10-20 wrote: »

I think that filling the cavity is the way to go here.
Also look at breaking into the roof space above the play-room to install the recommended 300mm of insulation.
Do you have any downlighters installed?

Yes, downlighters in all the downstairs rooms...
Is there a way to protect the insulation from these?

Also, I hope I have described it correctly, the bricks used here are the 9" double hollow block type, the cavity is not made from two 4" bricks as in soms builds... can this still be filled?
If so should it bew filled with bead of foam?

Thanks

RKQ

Insulate the attic / roof over the playroom.

Its worth considering replacing the existing dry lining insulation, depending on what the existing material is? and its current thickness, alternatively insulate over the existing with 50mm Kingspan or Xtherm. (Its difficult to say without seeing the existing structure)

The gaps around the metre boxes seem to be allowing draught penetrations. Its worth looking at these and trying to seal around them.

IMO 9" Hollow block walls can not be insulated with foam! Dry-lining is the only effective way to insulate hollow blocks.

aslan

RKQ wrote: »

Insulate the attic / roof over the playroom.

Its worth considering replacing the existing dry lining insulation, depending on what the existing material is? and its current thickness, alternatively insulate over the existing with 50mm Kingspan or Xtherm. (Its difficult to say without seeing the existing structure)

The gaps around the metre boxes seem to be allowing draught penetrations. Its worth looking at these and trying to seal around them.

IMO 9" Hollow block walls can not be insulated with foam! Dry-lining is the only effective way to insulate hollow blocks.

9" inch Cavity walls can not be foam filled although some companies will try and tell you that you can, the problem is you have no way of knowing where the foam is going.
Relying the walls is the way out of this .
Aslan

DublinDilbert

trackerman wrote: »

Is there a way to protect the insulation from these?

Yea you can get metal "plant-pots" which go over the back to keep the insulation away from them... Someone here also recommended metal SMA tins... Some deep biscuit tins would also do the same job ( always a few empty ones after christmas )

RKQ wrote: »

The gaps around the metre boxes seem to be allowing draught penetrations. Its worth looking at these and trying to seal around them.

Sounds like there's a serous gap around the meter boxes... if you can find it i would get some expanding foam in there for starters!

It might not look like a gap as there's usually a lip on the meter box.... you might be able to bend it backwards with a screw driver and squirt in the expanding foam...

10-10-20

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Yea you can get metal "plant-pots" which go over the back to keep the insulation away from them... Someone here also recommended metal SMA tins... Some deep biscuit tins would also do the same job ( always a few empty ones after christmas )

That was me! It works a treat!

Guvnor

Apart from the excellent advice above - you could try and exclude all draughts. Do every window and external door and use as much 'tape' as required to make them air tight.

We did this a few months back on the front door and it has made a 2-3 degree difference to the temperature in the hall. We did have to use about 50 metres of the insulation tape!

trackerman

Thanks for the advice all.
The inernal batton spacers are 2" thick and filled with pink fiber with a plastic sheet on the room side, this is then covered with normal chalk/plaster board.

I've checked the meter box and indeed there is a big gap where the pebbel-dash is not properly applied... again poor building quality.

The small loft over the playroom is hollow and can be accessed from the porch roof if I remove the plastic eves...

Do from the advice here I've concluded that the best solution is to remove the plasterboard and re-apply high quality kingspan insulation to the exterior walls.

Now the only problem is that there is coving in the play room, whats the recommeded approach here, leave it in place and try to cut the new plasterboard to fit, filling gaps etc or remove everything and get a plasterer to redo the coving?

DublinDilbert

trackerman wrote: »

I've checked the meter box and indeed there is a big gap where the pebbel-dash is not properly applied... again poor building quality.

Sounds like this would be the first thing to deal with and see how much of a change it makes.... also sounds like a fairly simple problem to deal with...

trackerman wrote: »

Do from the advice here I've concluded that the best solution is to remove the plasterboard and re-apply high quality kingspan insulation to the exterior walls.

Now the only problem is that there is coving in the play room, whats the recommeded approach here, leave it in place and try to cut the new plasterboard to fit, filling gaps etc or remove everything and get a plasterer to redo the coving?

Don't worry about the coving, take it down.... Finishing off the coving willl be a easy job compared to getting in 8x4 sheets of insulated board, getting them cut, fixed in place & finished.....

Coving is cheap and just stuck in place, you wouldn't need a plaster to do it...

trackerman

Cheers Dilbert, I attach the meter box first and see what that does for me.