Porch insulation

[Pete74]

I have a brick built integral porch to my bungalow. It has single thickness brick walls, an internal door but no external door. The sections of the walls in the rooms either side of the porch are cold. How can I insulate the porch walls? I thought about a stud frame with UPVC sheet (if it's possible to get exterior grade and fill the cavity with insulation. Anyone have thoughts on this idea or a better suggestion?

 

[Bankrupt]

A photograph would be helpful - How big is the porch ? Is it possible to fit an external door on to the porch ? - If it is that's probably your best bet...

 

[Pete74]

Thanks, the porch is 0.8m deep x 1.2m wide. I have thought about an external door but with rounded top to entrance and door frame, the door wouldn't be very wide (also expensive).[/img]

 

[Richard C]

There are various methods you can use to improve the situation but a picture or 2 would be useful as, from your description, I’m not clear exactly what you have!

By “internal” door do you really mean an internal door is fitted between the inside of the bungalow & porch or is it an externally rated door? I assume the walls between the bungalow & the porch are cavity & it’s just the porch that’s single skin?

 

[Pete74]

Hopefully from the attached pictures you can see that the opening to the porch is level with the front of the bungalow. The previous owner had the bungalow walls cavity insulated. Where the porch walls continue into the bungalow to form the hall-way walls they are in line (allowing for plaster). This means that they must be single brick thickness, the same as the internal walls.

It is an external UPVC door fitted to the back of the porch.

Untitled

• Pete74
• 2 Jan 2010
• 1

Untitled

• Pete74
• 2 Jan 2010
• 1

 

[Richard C]

Ahh now it makes more sense; normally fitting an external door would do it & you can get a fixed frame made to suit that arch but I can see that you probably don’t have enough space for that. Insulating those two strips of wall is the easiest way & it looks like you have sufficient space to get a decent level of insulation on them. As it’s effectively open to the elements, whatever you fit must be suitable for exterior use. I’ve fitted internal insulation but I’ve never done any external so the advice I can offer is somewhat limited; maybe one of the other regulars with more experience can step in with more specific advice.

Google threw up this lot which shows various external insulation solutions & should give an idea what’s available;
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=e...ulation&meta=&aq=0&oq=external+wall+insulatio

 

[jm2000]

Hi, from what i can see you have about 100mm (4 inch) in depth.

With a damp proof membrane on the bottom and lapping up for about 450mm ,stud from 70mm ( 3 inch) timber, stuff with 70 kingspan insulation, screw some wall board to it and get it rendered to look like it did before.

This would bring it flush or just short of flush of the brickwork.

By lapping the dpm up, you should stop any damp rising up the render, onto the stud work.

 

[Richard C]

With a damp proof membrane on the bottom and lapping up for about 450mm ,stud from 70mm ( 3 inch) timber, stuff with 70 kingspan insulation, screw some wall board to it and get it rendered to look like it did before.

This would bring it flush or just short of flush of the brickwork.

By lapping the dpm up, you should stop any damp rising up the render, onto the stud work.

Sort of what I had in mind but you can’t use wall board (or any Gypsum based boards) it will not stand the damp conditions & will eventually disintegrate. I work with this stuff & plaster all the time & the state of boards I regularly pull out of bathroom refurbishments is bad enough let alone how long it would survive in an open, damp porch. Cement based fibre boards are waterproof & OK or even exterior cladding but, personally, I would be looking for something that combined insulation & a facing board so I could fix directly to the wall rather than batten out, perhaps something like this;
http://www.knaufinsulation.co.uk/PDF/Book_2_5_4_Render_And_Cladding_Walls.pdf