"Cavity Wall" insulation in C1650 timber frame hou

[Anonymous]

Hi
Here's the problem - "chilly!!".
Old timber framed house. Upstairs the rooms are panelled, and there's a gap between the panelling and the exterior, which is wire mesh and plaster going round the timber frame (yes really).
Downstairs the walls are solid.
Its really chilly in the bedrooms and I was wondering if we could somehow blow into the gap an insulating material such as the paper stuff made of old phone books, or sheeps wool.
What do you think?
Any ideas?
Thank you!

 

[Anonymous]

Take a look at this link:


Warmcel

 

[Anonymous]

Never I would fill up with insulation this cavity in a timber work houses. I have restorated much of them and everytime the inside insulation has destroyed the timber work after some years. In much cases the cellulose insulation gets mouldy by condensate, in spite of the lot of poison in it (borates). Reason: The insulation is colder than the humified room air, so condesate MUST go in.

Besides the lightweight insulation can not insulate against IR radiation, which causes 99% of thermal losses.

Better would be an permanent heating what hinders cooling off the walls every night and saves energy. As thermal insulation only solid materials like wood and stone work really. In Grindelwald, 1000 m above sea level, about 9 cm wood seems to be enough for the wooden block walls since 300 years. I have measured for myself, my grandfather in law lives there.

Details on the link.


Moulded thermal insulation

 

[Anonymous]

It's risky as Konrad suggests. Why? because you're at great risk of what us Brits call interstitial condensation - that's water vapour passing through to the cold part of a structure and condensing within. Your warm moist air from your living areas is already passing through of course - but since the gap behind the panelling is effectively heated due to lack of insulation, you may not suffer condensation, and even if you do, the draught in the cavity carries it away and keeps everything dry.

You could insulate the gap to your heart's content if you could either stop the air from your room passing through to the cooler side, and/or you could make sure that the insulant was vapour permeable and you could retain a small cavity, ventilated, on the cold side. I can't think of any way that you could do this reliably with an old timber frame. Sheep's wool per Biff's link might be suitably vapour permeable but that subject isn't mentioned on the web site. And blowing recycled newsprint into the cavity effectively blocks draughts within so you're still at some risk, I'd say.

The mouldy insulation problems mentioned on Konrad's site are predictable and well understood. What's the German for vapour barrier?

I'm very sceptical of Konrad's claims about the poor effectiveness of non-solid insulants. Stone is a poor insulant but if you have an underfloor heating system or some other ir heating in continuous use one might eventually think that one's stone building was nice and cosy, since the heat remains a while after the heating is turned off. In fact, it took just as long to heat the massive thermal store up and quite a lot disappeared out the street side as well.

Nevertheless I agree that for slow thermal response buildings a continuous low heat is quite probably more cost effective; heating the perimeter walls will go quite some way to eliminating condensation and combatting draughts.

 

[Anonymous]

The problem is the way to measure the U-value. Not many in building branche knows how this is done. Warm air is ventilated to the proof material, cools off and is warmed again outside the 'proof box'. The amount of energy to rewarm is the base for the U-value. It tells only something about cooling of warm molecules on colder surface molecules of the test material.

But: Does the cooling of your hand on a steel plate and a carpet in your room with both room temperature say anything about the wandering of IR radiation through the materials?

Will sunlight - also an electromagnetical radiation - shine through an 1 cm board of polystyrene? And wood? So you can see what works best against IR radiation. And it is IR radiation, what is reasonable for about 99% of temperature losses through material, believe it or not.

Besides the lightweight insulation has no capillar activity, what means this materials will never dry out the condensate what must go in, inspite of all vaporproofs, which will be moistured and mouldy after some years as our expierience shows. I do measure this with my equipement so often in my building consultations all around Germany.

So lightweighters in the building construction are a really pest and only a fake and hoax of 'our' industries and their obscene slaves in science and administration! They damage buildings, invests and - most important - make persons ill with asthma, allergy etc.

Thats the thing: No lightweighters as thermal insulation in and on the walls, in attics, under floors, in the foundations and so on. There is only one good pourpose for those - as carpets, to keep the feet warm. Because the molecular contacts are fewer than the marbles on the floor can offer to the warm feet. And so there will be fewer thermal losses by direct molecular contacts. Inspite they have the same room temperature. You can prove that by measuring with an simple IR thermometer.

Surprising? But true. And well known in earlier centuries from all building experts. Look on the good old buildings. Modern craftsmanship and engineering is the biggest danger for them, isn't it?

Details about this problems on the link (german)

The picture is a sketch of an old building (EVREUX CATHEDRAL) I did once. I like solid building constructions for technical reasons. They are even more beautiful. In good old England too, I suppose.



Altbau und Denkmalpflege Informationen

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Thank you <IMG SRC="http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussing/smileys/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">

 

[Anonymous]

Careful, miss. You know what happens to teachers who snog their pupils in the stationery cupboard!