Utility Room

[wobs]

Next major job at Wobs Acres is to tackle the Utility room*. This is a bit of a strange order, as I would normally prefer to do it last, but 1st born's bedroom is directly above, and her's is the coldest bedroom, so......

The basic plan is to insulate the ceiling of the utility room with a Celotex type sheet (its currently got some polystyrene sheeting on it). We'll probably strip back to joists and start from there. Limited to about 2" of insulation on the main ceiling here.

But the rest of the room is a bit more open to question.

We need a new window and back door, so as you'll see in the pics, we'll probably have to raise the floor (and level it off first).

The wall under the window is currently single brick (rest of the house is double brick).

Just about all the people on our row of houses have knocked through their utility room as far as I know, but we wish to keep the pantry etc, and if its the only one left on this row of houses, it just reinforces our resolve in this.

House is a 1900s house. As you'll see the wall has been pointed with cement, so lime cement is unlikely to happen. The floor is currently dry, but we see moisture come up in the middle in winter. The room has a sheila maid on the ceiling which seems to dry clothes quite quickly even in winter, probably due to the large amount of "ventilation" (or draught) (note the double vent in the wall)

Potential options for single brick wall:
Builder suggested sticking Celotex to it
A neighbour has lined there house with metal frame mounted Celotex
A second brick layer
Something else

As you can see, the floor needs levelling off, but we will probably have to raise it to bring it above the damp course. This may raise it above the toilet, just to make it interesting, but it maybe a good idea to insulate the floor while we're at it. Any suggestions for this would be helpful.









Basically, any advice would be welcome, as its a bit beyond what I'm used to doing.

* We call it a Utility Room, but my parents call it a scullery. Not sure of the distinction, but given what we use it for these days, I think a scullery seems a bit wrong.

 

[Flyfisher]

Next major job at Wobs Acres is to tackle the Utility room*. This is a bit of a strange order, as I would normally prefer to do it last, but 1st born's bedroom is directly above, and her's is the coldest bedroom, so......

There may be all manner of good reasons for your plans, but I wouldn't be worrying about the first-born's bedroom temperature as being one of them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21537988

:wink:

 

[malcolm]

Insulating a downstairs room because the upstairs room is cold seems an odd strategy.

Do you remember when the powers that be said 70% of heat loss was through the roof? It's only when they assumed that everyone had fitted 300mm of insulation in the roof they decided walls were now the major thing for heat loss (window suppliers will insist it is the windows) but nobody suggests floors account for more than 20% of heat loss.

Given it is a utility room used for clothes drying be very careful with the insulation. Hot and wet air will be sucked towards anything colder where it can condense. Make sure that colder place isn't the end of the ceiling joists sticking through the inner part of the outside wall. Really good sealing that will outlast the insulation without ever peeling or cracking is a must (yeah right). Or use breathable stuff that will suck up any damp that gets through, but still with a vapour barrier on the side with the hot wet air.

For the walls it you leave the vent there is not much point in insulating. That half brick wall looks to be waterproof on both sides so will be damp. Putting Celotex against it won't help. If you must insulate then a stud wall with a gap to the wall might be an option, but it won't help much for the tiny bit of wall.

My felling is leave it alone unless there are real problems. Use the money for a holiday. If there are real problems then sort them, but what are they?

 

[MatthewC]

Insulating a downstairs room because the upstairs room is cold seems an odd strategy.

<snip>

My felling is leave it alone unless there are real problems. Use the money for a holiday. If there are real problems then sort them, but what are they?

I agree, but would also ask precisely what do you intend to use the room for? Simply as a utility room (i.e. washing machine, tumble drier, pile of clothes in washing basket, tools left out etc)? Is the room actually damp other than the moisture on the floor in winter?

NB I think a scullery is the place where you would have done washing (think of a steaming copper, or boiling buckets of nappies, and wooden tongs!) and the messy side of cooking (peeling vegetables, butchering meat and gutting fish) plus the cleaning of huge cooking pots etc and storing of same. It all sounds a bit outdated now, doesn't it? A utility room has clean white goods plus space for a few useful tools held in reserve for household jobs, and is probably a much nicer place to be!

 

[Keithj]

That's my definition of a scullery, too. I am very glad to live in a house that doesn't have one of those.

 

[wobs]

thank you for the reply

Insulating a downstairs room because the upstairs room is cold seems an odd strategy.

Do you remember when the powers that be said 70% of heat loss was through the roof? It's only when they assumed that everyone had fitted 300mm of insulation in the roof they decided walls were now the major thing for heat loss (window suppliers will insist it is the windows) but nobody suggests floors account for more than 20% of heat loss.

Loft is well insulated.
There are two external walls in this area. For the room above, I would like to insulate the interior of one of these walls, but the other has a window with original architrives, and would like to leave it (replastering a possibility though). But we won't be working on 1st born's bedroom for a year or two at least.

Given it is a utility room used for clothes drying be very careful with the insulation. Hot and wet air will be sucked towards anything colder where it can condense. Make sure that colder place isn't the end of the ceiling joists sticking through the inner part of the outside wall. Really good sealing that will outlast the insulation without ever peeling or cracking is a must (yeah right). Or use breathable stuff that will suck up any damp that gets through, but still with a vapour barrier on the side with the hot wet air.

-This is the part where I was really hoping for some explanation, so extra thank yous for this bit. Just to clarify, are you suggesting we should strip it back to joists as planned, but put a vapour barrier on, then a breatheable insulation over this? Insulation such as hemp? What could we use over this to give the appearance of a regular ceiling?

For the walls it you leave the vent there is not much point in insulating. That half brick wall looks to be waterproof on both sides so will be damp. Putting Celotex against it won't help. If you must insulate then a stud wall with a gap to the wall might be an option, but it won't help much for the tiny bit of wall.

One reason that we want to work on that wall, is that the door frame moves when we open/close the door. The frame is in need of replacing, and so would like a more substantial door frame. To do this, it would seem sensible to do something with the wall, so it lines up with a new door frame if the frame is more substantial. But again, I'm open to suggestions on this. A small stud wall with gap could be a solution, and would give a window cill, so might be worth considering.

The current frame is rotten in a number of places. I have repaired many windows in the past, but this looks like its at the point of replacement. As a non-original frame, which was badly designed (top window frame is very rotten due to no run off slope), it would be no great loss.

In addition, the door is narrower than the smallest standard exterior door, and so a new frame would enable us to get a more sensible size. As this would entail work on said wall, I wanted to check the best thing to do with this wall.

As for the vents, I should ask - given that the room is used for drying clothes, would it be adviseable to keep those two vents in the wall, to keep a flow of air? As has been said, it means having a cold room, but as you said, I don't really want a build up of moist air.

My felling is leave it alone unless there are real problems. Use the money for a holiday. If there are real problems then sort them, but what are they?

Really, its a combination of factors that brings us to look at working on this room. We could leave the wall alone, but if we are fitting a new window/door, we need to work on the floor. If we're working on the floor and door frame, I wanted to ensure we do this wall properly, so it looks and works right. And if we're looking at insulating the ceiling, we need to do it right to managemt moisture.

 

[malcolm]

I can see what you are thinking about now. The half brick wall (4.5 inch) looks like a poorly executed modern modification put in when the door and window were added. The mortar in the bricks at the bottom matches the mortar in the full thickness wall to the side so I guess the bottom bricks are single brick (9 inch). I would build the wall up to single brick thickness on top of the existing lower course using lime mortar if you are changing the window and door.

I'm no expert on water management, but I've developed aquaphobia recently due to the state of my 17C timber frame which was mistreated over the last 100 years and now needs a new gable end. The bits that have survived are the bits that could dry out through lime plaster. Others might offer better ideas.

I guess a clothes drying room could be treated like a shower room which would normally have an extractor fan to control moisture. Any insulation in the roof ought to have some sort of air gap above to allow water that gets through to disperse. Gaps between the joists ought to do that. I would put the least vapour permeable part on the wet side (plaster and paint maybe).