Internal wall insulation

[pal52]

I have a bedroom on a corner of the house with walls facing north and east. The room is cold and suffers from significant damp patches where things are placed too close to the wall and there is no air movement.

I was planning to batton the walls, plasterboard them and get them skimmed.

I have a number of questions:

1. How thick should the batons be, or is it as thick as possible?
2. Do I use Foil backed plasterboard or polythene sheet and normal board?
3. Do I need to fill the gaps between the batons with rock wool?

Thanks for any advice.

Peter

 

[noseall]

If the existing plastering is sound and space is not an issue then you could dab insulated plasterboards direct to the wall.

 

[pal52]

Hi

The wall is solid without cavity but the plaster is sound. It is a cold room so I would like to give it a bit more insulation hence spacing the plasterboard out from the wall.

 

[mointainwalker]

The distance wall to plasterboard will determine how much insulation you can fit in. If you want to fit a significant amount then you will need to screw battens to floor and ceiling and attach verticals to themt.

I would suggest normal board and poly sheet because otherwise you would need to seal the joins with a plastic tape and I don't think the skim would stick to that very well.

Gaps between battens. Well you don't have to fill in but why wouldn't you ?

If you use rock-wool, it is important that it doen't get damp as this diminishes its insulating properties dramatically ( that's a major reason for the vapour barrier ) so make sure there is no penetratin damp in your wall.

 

[alittlerespect]

Using timber battens in your situation is a waste of resource, money and time. You would be better off spending the money on some good quality PIR insulated plasterboard and sticking on with dab's as recommended by 'noseall'.

Gyproc do a 65mm thick thermaline super PIR board and this would give you a U value for the whole thickness of the wall of 0.32W/m2K compared to the heat loss you have at present with a U value of 2.12W/m2K. There are other manufacturers Kingspan, Celotex etc who may have a similar product but I don't have their information to hand, so I am using Gyproc to illustrate the benefit of insulating a solid wall.

If needed add some more insulation in the loft, you should then find that the room is affordable to heat, and you should not get any problems with condensation. If your going to put furniture against the wall then leave a 50mm (2") gap between the wall and the furniture.

Regards