I have recently moved into a dormer chalet style 4 bedroom house - the kind where 2 of the bedrooms and a bathroom are built into the roof with large eaves cupboards running along both lengths of the house. The windows are in the gables either end.
Downstairs is constructed of a brick cavity wall (which has blown cavity wall insulation) but upstairs is basically the roof with the bedrooms constructed within - there is no brick. The walls of the bedrooms are just plaster boarded, beyond which are the slates of the roof. The gables are also boarded, the other side of which there are slates.
The bedrooms are absolutely freezing. I guess because they are simply boards with no insulation.
The rafters in the roof running down into the eaves cupboards are 100mm deep so I plan to fit 50mm Celotex between the rafters and then lay over this 100mm Celotex (with additional battens). This will hopefully insulate the eaves and thereby the walls of the bedrooms. In the loft area above the bedrooms I plan to roll 270mm rockwall between and over the rafters.
A retired building friend of mine has plaster boarded the interior of the bedrooms - the boarding making-up the walls and ceiling of the bedrooms was covered in ugly textured boarding. He has also built a stud wall at the gable end of the rooms and stuffed the cavity created with the original wall full of rockwool.
However, I don't believe he has fitted a vapour barrier. Is this essential? I am concerned that vapour will pass through the studwall and condensate on the inside of the original wall. Or, will it pass through the original wall (there is no evidence of damp before the work started)?
If a vapour barrier should have been fitted I don't want to have to rip out all his work on the gable ends of the house - is there anything I can do to the plasterboard? Paint it with vapour barrier paint for example?
Both of the bedrooms have been completely boarded without a vapour barrier but I'm guessing it will pass out of the ceiling into the loft and be expelled from there (it's very draughty up there!)
Any thoughts?
Thanks
Downstairs is constructed of a brick cavity wall (which has blown cavity wall insulation) but upstairs is basically the roof with the bedrooms constructed within - there is no brick. The walls of the bedrooms are just plaster boarded, beyond which are the slates of the roof. The gables are also boarded, the other side of which there are slates.
The bedrooms are absolutely freezing. I guess because they are simply boards with no insulation.
The rafters in the roof running down into the eaves cupboards are 100mm deep so I plan to fit 50mm Celotex between the rafters and then lay over this 100mm Celotex (with additional battens). This will hopefully insulate the eaves and thereby the walls of the bedrooms. In the loft area above the bedrooms I plan to roll 270mm rockwall between and over the rafters.
A retired building friend of mine has plaster boarded the interior of the bedrooms - the boarding making-up the walls and ceiling of the bedrooms was covered in ugly textured boarding. He has also built a stud wall at the gable end of the rooms and stuffed the cavity created with the original wall full of rockwool.
However, I don't believe he has fitted a vapour barrier. Is this essential? I am concerned that vapour will pass through the studwall and condensate on the inside of the original wall. Or, will it pass through the original wall (there is no evidence of damp before the work started)?
If a vapour barrier should have been fitted I don't want to have to rip out all his work on the gable ends of the house - is there anything I can do to the plasterboard? Paint it with vapour barrier paint for example?
Both of the bedrooms have been completely boarded without a vapour barrier but I'm guessing it will pass out of the ceiling into the loft and be expelled from there (it's very draughty up there!)
Any thoughts?
Thanks
