What would you do?

[Peter]

The kitchen in our late Victorian end of terrace has been moved into the old scullery at some time in the past. This is in an original single height extension out the back of the house. It has three outside walls and no insulation in the roof. It is not the largest of rooms in an otherwise large house. We cannot extend out cheaply due to the steep drop downwards at the back of the house so we are looking to re-do the kitchen. Someone in the past has built an internal breeze block second skin within the scullery on 1 1/2 sides of the three external walls. It is doing very little to keep the kitchen warm. We will be insulating the roof but do we:
a) remove the breeze block wall to gain internal space?
b) use what is there and insulate the cavity?
c) something else?
Do we fall foul of building regs if we do a) above.

Your thoughts please!

 

[Gervase]

Who's going to tell the building inspector if you choose route 'a'? What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve for.
Not that I would ever condone underhand activity, of course!

 

[Peter]

Too True. I expect it was never an "approved" wall anyway.

 

[Penners]

Someone in the past has built an internal breeze block second skin within the scullery on 1 1/2 sides of the three external walls. It is doing very little to keep the kitchen warm.

Are you sure that it's doing very little to keep the room warm? What is the construction of the outer wall? Your comments imply that the room is cold, but I'd be extremely surprised if removing the inner leaf of wall and insulating the roof would have a beneficial effect on the warmth of the room.

If it was mine, I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to remove the inner wall. I reckon you'd do better to start by leaving the walls as they are, and doing a good insulating job on the roof. See how the room feels after that - if it isn't considerably improved, then you might consider insulating within the wall cavity.

 

[NT]

I presume you mean these walls are 4" single skin. If so, I'd insulate them on the inside. The breeze wall, if its properly tied to the old brick wall, will be stabiliszing the old 4" wall, so the wall condition needs to be checked if youre considering removing the inner leaf.

You say the ground slopes away steeply: I dont know how steeply, am just aware that even 2' added on makes a big difference to these mean kitchens.


NT