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  • November 18, 2013 at 11:50 am #1470
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    I am in the middle of a few minor rennovations to my house, mostly centred around installing a rangehood in the kitchen (I will also be upgrading my ceiling insulation and lining my curtains after summer). The minor rennovations includind stripping all of the old wallpaper from the laundry, kitchen, dining and lounge. The laundry wallpaper had visible mold on it, to which I thought was historical (tennants living in a filty state before we bought the house), and while I did scrub the walls, because the wallpaper was textured, the mold was stuck in there – but never grew. Upon removing the wallpaper we saw the mold was in the gib, and our laundry cabinet was pretty much rotten and behind that the wall covered in black mold. So, out came the laundry cabinet and two laundry walls. My question is, and I am sure this must be a common one; is there any point me putting insulation in the laundry on two walls before re-gibbing on the basis that my budget simply doesn’t extend to insulating the remaining walls of any other rooms at this point? (Laundry is at the most southern end of the house).

    November 19, 2013 at 6:01 am #1471
    Norman Smith
    Participant

    Hi Jo, I don’t know if your laundry sits within the main body of the house or as more of a lean-too structure, which might influence the decision. First response, my position is always insulate walls anywhere when you have the chance, in this instance it would be marginal cost of materials only. There are techniques for installing the ‘building paper’ from the inside which others will have some ideas about.

    Norman

    November 19, 2013 at 8:47 am #1472
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    Hi Norman, thanks for your response, the laundry is attached to the house and is a small room off the kitchen area, all open plan (i.e. no door). We are in a brick house so with the gib gone, all that’s left is the wooden framing and the brick wall – its quite bizarre really! Such a relief to be rid of the mold…that we didn’t know we had. I couldn’t even be in the house when we exposed it, I started sneezing instantly, then my throat closed up and I got bad asthma. Fortunately Cory wasn’t as badly affected so he geared up and got it all out. It’s hideous stuff.

    November 20, 2013 at 8:23 am #1475
    Vicki Cowan
    Keymaster

    yes I’d agree with Norman, once you’ve got the gib off anyway it’s an absolute no brainer to insulate the wall.

    Because your cladding is brick which is a “wet wall” system you do need to make sure the insulation doesn’t touch the bricks or it will wick water into the house framing and possibly your new gib.  The most common method used is to cut inserts of building wrap out and staple those inside the framing tight so they hold the insulation away from the cladding.  Or some people use plastic straps.  In theory you should put building paper there, as I think I saw some BRANZ testing showing that the inserts do reduce the amount of moisture penetrating into the cavity.  That’s the method recommended in the current NZ Std for installing wall insulation, though EECA and MBIE recently issued a guidance document that suggested strapping is OK – the main thing is don’t let the insulation touch the bricks.

    November 20, 2013 at 8:44 am #1476
    Phil Squire
    Participant

    In a downstairs room at home I’ve used the strapping method for wall insulation where the internal framing was backing onto a concrete retaining wall. I used Novafloor to insulate, which is semi-rigid and friction-fitted so it held firmly in place (with about a 5cm gap to the concrete),  didn’t sag back between the strapping, and wasn’t going to be pushed back towards the concrete when the gib was replaced.  When I stripped the old gib (which was showing signs of moisture ingress – bubbling paint and musty room), I found the wall had previously been insulated with Pink Batts, and the Batts was hard against the wall and quite quite damp – moist even.

    So the final solution provided an air cavity (plus I created a ventilation channel with openings at both ends of the wall) which meant dry insulation. And the end results are a dry room. It’s our bedroom now and I feel a warm glow of pride at theory meeting practice and the two agreeing wholeheartedly with each other.

    November 20, 2013 at 9:12 am #1477
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    Ok, thanks a lot Lois and Phil (and Norman), that is great info.

    November 20, 2013 at 9:24 am #1478
    Paul Hansen
    Participant

    Nice answers. The paper oversized for the framing and stapled inside as Lois suggested is a great way to ensure everything past that is effectively outside your moisture barrier (plus the breather cavity between bricks and framing) and everything to the inside of this paper iseffectively inside the house. Easy enough to do, I prefer the black bitumised type buiding paper as I think they are starting to find a few issues with some of the suppossed breathable plastic (typically white) building wraps, but take enough time to get this and the insulation right. It IS the last barrier between the outside wet/cold and the inside warm/dry environments. If you want to be real fussy with it, (1) oversized paper, (2) then strips of the blue ‘Danband’ strapping stapled to be real strong and stop tears occuring in the building paper as its folded and stapled in place, (3) and insulation pushed in against it and gib fixed over top. Give me a call if my description is confusing Jo.

    November 21, 2013 at 8:48 am #1481
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    Thanks Paul, I though the insulation couldn’t touch the building paper? Think I need to just give you a call, unless you are passing by Mt Maunganui this Saturday? (hehehe)

    November 21, 2013 at 12:07 pm #1482
    Paul Hansen
    Participant

    In walls touching the building paper is fine. What you dont want to do is compromise the breather gap that has always been in brick buildings (the gap between the outside of the paper and the cladding/brickwork in this instance) and is also a component of new builds as a breather cavity to try and part remedy the leaky house gig.

    November 22, 2013 at 1:21 pm #1487
    Gleb Speranski
    Participant

    Hi Jo,

    Just want to explain why partially insulating walls still makes sense. Uninsulated wall represents a large radiant surface that (when colder than objects in the room) ‘sucks’ the heat from all the warmer objects within the living space including human beings. The more you insulate the wall the less radiant surface it will have.

    Another important aspect is condensation: a cold wall surface is where the dew point is likely to be reached. In turn, that area may then become a breeding ground for mould. This is a very common problem in NZ houses as you know.

     

    November 22, 2013 at 3:11 pm #1488
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    Thanks Gleb, I completely understand the principle, I am just experiencing the realities of the COST of doing this job!

    Many thanks for your response, this is all been fantastic learning for me and a good experience, I’ll be able to transfer what I know now into my job.

    November 25, 2013 at 7:51 am #1493
    Sally Blackwell
    Member

    HI guys, I was on a course last week (completely unrelated to this but related to my PhD, which is related to this…) and I met a guy who was advised by Wgtn city council that they needed building consent and / or sign off from a building inspector to insulate their walls with bulk insulation. They had already taken the Gib off and were going to install wall insulation. They decided that with the council requirements (several months wait and lots of money) they wouldn’t bother. (well actually they did… they just insulated and closed the walls up and pretended it never happened…). Can someone clarify what the requirements are from councils for wall insulation??

    November 25, 2013 at 7:51 am #1494
    Sally Blackwell
    Member

    HI guys, I was on a course last week (completely unrelated to this but related to my PhD, which is related to this…) and I met a guy who was advised by Wgtn city council that they needed building consent and / or sign off from a building inspector to insulate their walls with bulk insulation. They had already taken the Gib off and were going to install wall insulation. They decided that with the council requirements (several months wait and lots of money) they wouldn’t bother. (well actually they did… they just insulated and closed the walls up and pretended it never happened…). Can someone clarify what the requirements are from councils for wall insulation??

    November 25, 2013 at 10:26 am #1498
    Scott Willis
    Participant

    Nothing useful to add, except that this is a great discussion thread, dealing with a real situation, recognising the incidentals that arise when theory becomes practice, and having many knowledgeable individuals contribute in a timely way – a perfect example of the usefulness of the hub!

    November 26, 2013 at 4:43 pm #1502
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    Thanks for all the responses, my ‘half a laundry’ has extended to the whole laundry, it just seemed to make more sense and the additional cost of materials was $39. Interesting about WCC building consent/sign off to insulate walls…fortunately I don’t like in WN so it won’t apply in this instance anyway 😉

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