Freezing 70's extension. Kingspan on roof but walls COLD

[cliffandliz]

Hello again.

Here is a picture of my extension. Sorry its a mess.

To the right is the bathroom. The wall used to be external and it still an active cavity. At the bottom of the wall there is a sealed gully which I am going to leave in place as its been there for 30 years. This gully accepts water from bathroom shower and sink.

Straight ahead is the wall between the kitchen and extension. Again, this wall used to be external and its an active cavity. There is a sealed gully there too which again I will leave due to massive expense in moving it. This gully accepts waster from kitchen sink and washing machine.

Behnd is a 4 metre wide double glazed sliding door which is new. All other walls are exterior cavities which are not tied into the original part of the house cavity. Rubbish eh ?

I have kingspan between the joists and under the joists on the flat roof. I guess I should get round to plaster boarding it. This roof is cold deck.

The problem I have it that all walls are exterior walls and the place is freezing. I can feel immense cold radiation from all walls even when the heating is on.

In the garden I have 25mm kingspan boards. My question is, do I line the walls with them to make the extension more warm and then plasterboard over them ?

Those old cavity walls are like ice blocks and the new cavity walls aren't much better despite being insulated may years ago.

I have plumbing running along the bases of all walls so therefore plan on not putting the kingspan right down to the floor and eventually boxing the bottoms of the walls in.

Something else rather interesting. Please also see photo of stink pipe. Comments please. Its been there since the 70's and I was planning on just boxing it in. Also, there is a sealed manhole in the middle of the floor which again I am planning on leaving.

As you can see, there is a lot wrong here but I am planning on staying in this house forever.

I just want to make it very warm and very cosy as a livable space without much money being spent on it. After all, those pipes have been there since the 70's and as long as I dont touch them, I wont need to bring them to current regs. The pipe literally pokes out of the wall into a void between this extension and the next doors extension.

Also, from my humidity meter how humid it is in here which relates to my previous post about rendering breaching the DPC. The same is true here, the render breaches the entire extension DPC.

I am planning on going into the roof one day, so I wonder if I will have to disconnect this stink pipe and move the manhole then ?

I look forward to hearing your comments.

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• cliffandliz
• 2 Oct 2012
• 1

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• cliffandliz
• 2 Oct 2012
• 1

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• cliffandliz
• 2 Oct 2012
• 1

Untitled

• cliffandliz
• 2 Oct 2012
• 1

Untitled

• cliffandliz
• 2 Oct 2012
• 1

 

[gissle]

Hi,

To make it warmer, you could put some battens up, put some insulated panels up, and then plasterboard.

I don't think you should move the manhole, it's probably maintenance access for a drain. We used to have one in our old conservatory :-s

Humidity - I guess you need good ventilation to solve that problem.

I hope that this helps.

 

[cliffandliz]

Excellent, thankyou. Do I really need to batten ? Some people have suggested that I adhere the panels direct to the wall with some kind of adhesive and then simply plasterboard over these using the wall itself as the fixing for the plasterboard through the insulation board.

Im trying to make this our main living space, so the less heat loss the better really...

With no heating, this room is generally 2-3 degrees cooler than the main part of the bungalow. I think these is due to the cold radiation from the walls themselves, much like a larder...

Would you suggest insulation boards over the whole room including over reveals to windows ?

 

[cliffandliz]

I guess really what I am doing then in a Kingspan cocoon. Surely that has to be good ?!?!?

 

[gissle]

I'm not really an expert to be honest. I guess if someone suggested that you can plasteboard directly to the panels, then you can.

I would think that as long as most of the area is insulated then you should gain a quite a bit of warmth, but the more insulation the better of course.

 

[gissle]

I would also think that you could put some rolls of insulation in the roof space? That's pretty cheap.

 

[masona]

Could be your undersized radiator

We all have a coldest room of all rooms, a lot to do with sun rotation. My front north room always the coldest of all, I battened and plasterboards the external wall with bigger radiator and now it's okay.