This guide provides a comprehensive guide on how to insulate a cold room’s interior, whether it’s solid walls, cavity walls, or stud walls. To fix cold walls without resorting to costly insulation, it is essential to determine the root cause of the issue. Defective cavity wall insulation is one of the most common causes.
Insulating a cold wall from the inside is the easiest way to fix the problem, as it can improve the thermal performance of the property. Insulative panels or boards can be used, but their bulkiness can eat away at living space. Internal wall insulation involves applying insulation to the interior face of external walls to improve the property’s thermal performance. There are four main methods of insulatement:
- Assess your walls: Clean and patch any holes before installing insulation material securely.
- Install a vapor barrier: Finish off the wall by adding a vapour barrier and covering it with drywall or panelling for a polished look.
- Add thermal lining or insulating wallpaper to your cold wall: Provide an extra layer of insulation and help keep your home warmer.
- Install a thermally efficient coating over your interior walls: Coatings are thin but highly efficient and can significantly improve the thermal performance of your home.
- Fit skirting boards: Deal with the issue of cold walls by assessing your walls, preparing the area, installing a vapor barrier, applying insulation material, fitting skirting boards, and dealing with the issue.
To address the issue of cold walls, consider installing insulation in walls, ceilings, and floors to improve the thermal performance of your home. Use rugs and thick curtains to provide extra warmth in colder rooms and move furniture away from the wall. Building a stud wall against the interior surface of internal walls is the most effective way to insulate internal solid walls.
📹 Cold Floors & Walls in an Old House ~ What Can Nick Do?
A homeowner is seeking advice on insulating the floors and walls of an old house. The video provides guidance on using insulation boards for the floor and thermal boards for the walls, emphasizing the importance of airtight construction and proper adhesive application. The presenter also addresses the pros and cons of different plastering techniques.
How to stop cold air from coming through walls?
To improve air tightness in your home, hire an energy assessor or weatherization expert to test your home for air leaks. Caulk and weatherstrip doors and windows that leak air, seal air leaks where plumbing, ducting, or electrical wiring comes through walls, floors, ceilings, and soffits over cabinets. Install foam gaskets behind outlet and switch plates on walls, inspect dirty spots on visual insulation for air leaks and mold, and seal leaks with low-expansion spray foam and house flashing if needed.
Look for dirty spots on ceiling paint and carpet, caulk them, and replace single-pane windows with more efficient double-pane low-emissivity windows. Use foam sealant on larger gaps around windows, baseboards, and other areas where air may leak out. Check your dryer vent for blocked vents and replace exterior door bottoms and thresholds with pliable sealing gaskets. Keep the fireplace flue damper tightly closed when not in use and seal air leaks around fireplace chimneys, furnaces, and gas-fired water heater vents with fire-resistant materials.
Inflatable chimney balloons can be used to seal your flue when not in use, and a do-it-yourselfer can create an inexpensive, reusable fireplace flue plug by jamming a plastic trash bag with fiberglass batt scraps and attaching a durable cord with a tag. If you want to save money on fireplaces, replace them with an EPA-certified insert installed by a certified professional.
How do you treat a cold internal wall?
Insulating cold walls from the inside is a cost-effective and convenient solution, but it can be bulky and reduce living space. SprayCork, a thermally efficient coating, is used by Total Trades to insulate cold walls from the inside, with an 8mm thick final coating that is damp-resistant and noise-insulating. External insulation is another option that can be just as effective as panels, boards, and internal coatings. Both methods can significantly improve insulation and reduce the size of the room.
How do you fix a cold room in your house?
To fix a cold room in your home, first inspect the heating vents, ductwork, and thermostat readings. Clean the return air vents to prevent dust and gunk from obstructing heat passage. Test the thermostat, test the temperature of your walls, and consider the ductwork. If one room is colder than the rest, it’s recommended to perform these inspections at least once a year. This includes checking heating vents, cleaning vents, testing the thermostat, and considering the ductwork.
How do I make my internal walls warmer?
This guide discusses the importance of wall insulation in improving energy efficiency and comfort in homes. It discusses rigid insulation boards, which are solid, dense boards made from materials like foam or fiberglass, and natural insulation materials like sheep’s wool, cork, or recycled newspaper. Insulating cold walls from the inside can significantly reduce heating bills and chill the home. The guide covers various methods and materials for effectively insulating internal walls, including solid, cavity, and stud walls. Understanding the importance of wall insulation is crucial for reducing energy consumption and reducing heating bills.
Why are my interior walls cold?
Cold walls are caused by poor insulation, particularly in older properties with solid walls. About 35% of heat loss occurs through walls and gaps, allowing warmth to escape outside. A well-insulated wall creates a barrier to prevent heat escaping, allowing the wall to hold heat better and feel warm when touched. Most solid-walled properties have issues with cold walls and condensation. If cavity walls feel cold, it may be necessary to upgrade cavity wall insulation.
Cold walls can lead to significant heat loss, increased energy bills, and condensation, potentially causing mold issues. If walls feel damp, it is crucial to address the problem quickly to prevent damage to the property.
Why is my house so cold inside?
Rooms that remain cold even with heating on may be due to inadequate warm air circulation, such as blocked vents, a failing HVAC fan, or a dirty furnace filter. Oddly cold rooms may be due to poor insulation, leaks in ductwork, or an unbalanced heating system. Inspect insulation, windows, and doors for drafts and have a professional assess ductwork for leaks or blockages. Ductwork needs to be resealed by holding a smoke pencil to the seams in open ductwork, usually accessible through attic, garage, or basement. Seal these areas with foil-faced duct tape and replace old cloth-backed tape for enhanced durability.
How to stop damp on a cold wall?
Damp and mould are fungal growths caused by excess moisture on the inside of a property, often coupled with damp walls. The source of moisture can be internal or external. Common causes of damp and mould include rising damp, which is caused by moisture from the ground that travels up through the walls of a property by capillary action, and penetration damp, which is caused by an external source of moisture through an external wall. Wet exterior walls and damage to brickwork can also be signs of penetration damp.
Condensation can be caused by a lack of ventilation, especially in winter when people close their windows and have their heating on. Water leaks can also cause isolated patches of mould on ceilings, especially near chimney breasts that can be prone to leaks. To prevent condensation, it is essential to improve ventilation in your house, avoid overusing tumble dryers, use extractor fans, and open windows to maintain regular airflow.
Do cold walls mean damp?
Cold walls cause condensation, which attracts mould and can be costly and potentially harmful to health. Single skin and solid walls are unsuitable for cavity wall insulation, and solid walls are more susceptible to penetrating dampness from wind-driven rain. A damp wall has reduced thermal properties compared to a dry wall, and even insulated walls may become inefficient if the moisture within the walls makes the insulation damp.
What can I put on my walls to keep the cold out?
Insulating a cold wall from the inside is the easiest solution to keep the heat in without requiring adjustments to any fittings on the walls. Insulative exterior wall coatings can be applied to the outside of the cold wall to keep the heat in without the need for adjustments. Another option is a thermally efficient wall coating, which can be sprayed on and skimmed over, making it just 8mm thick and seven or eight times more insulative than traditional renders.
How to block cold air from a wall?
A bookcase-lined wall can block cool air from entering your home, creating a literary forcefield. Draft stoppers, such as the 36-inch-beige Door Draft Stopper, can also help conserve energy by closing up the space under your door. These devices prevent warm or cool air from escaping between rooms, saving you money on heating bills. Double draft stops for doors or windows are also available.
How to warm up the coldest room in the house?
Space heaters are a temporary solution for cold rooms, while thermal curtains can help with uneven temperatures and drafts around windows. Flannel sheets, draft blockers, stoppers, and weatherstriping can also help keep everyone cozy and warm in a cold house. Additionally, using draft blockers and stoppers along doors and weatherstriping windows can help prevent drafts and keep the house warm. Despite the cold weather, it’s essential to stay warm and cozy in a cold house to ensure a comfortable and cozy living environment.
📹 Insulating Internal Walls. Easy DIY Solution
This is an easy to follow how to guide for insulating internal walls. It will get rid of cold spots on walls and reduce condensation …
Great article very similar situation just bought a 1920’s build. Working on upstairs. We’re not back to brick like this article so is there an advantage to hacking off the old plaster/bonding coat back to brick? Looking at kingspan k118 board and using the dot and dab as you were saying but open to suggestions if you think there’s a better board to choose from?
Many new houses built from the 90’s onwards have solid concrete floors that are just heat sinks. What can you do to insulate these? We have the thickest underlay you can get according to the carpet fitters but in winter, you can still feel heat being sucked into the concrete. And no, underfloor heating isnt an option due to the utter carnage that would cause,
You often find that the cavity has filled up with debris over the years leading to a bit of damp at the base of the wall where the dpc or cavity has been breached and the brickwork is often very wet. With good old dense timber and ventilation the joists on that front bay wall may not rot easily in their current state BUT if insulated and injected with foam to seal the gaps as Roger mentioned you could have some issues in years to come.
To meet building regulations for the solid wall it’s U – 0.30 W/m2K min…batten out and use 40mm skimmed insulated plasterboard, 50mm insulation between 150mm studs on membrane with 100mm airspace. This gets you U – 0.23 W/m2K but not only is there a cost consideration for the studwork it severely impacts on the room’s space.
Just done this in my house. Insulated plasterboard is so expensive roughly 60 per sheet. jablite insulation board £10 tapered palsterboard £10 low expanding stick foam £5 does around 4 sheets lay down foam on flat surface, spray lots of foam on top, lay insulation board down on top. Put some lengths of wood on top, walk around in circles for a minute all two. Cost just over £20 for a 37mm total insulated plasterboard
Install a ventilator cowl to your chimney pot, if it hasn’t been done already. It’ll help eliminate water ingress and allow the existing flue to continually breathe. If its currently capped there can be condensation building up within the flue, escaping through the interior walls. I talk from experience, living in a victorian home. This solved a big problem for me and saved me a lot of money too. Let old buildings breath as they should. Great content by the way. Well presented. Keep it up
Very interesting. I wonder if you have noticed any difference in the temperatures in the room since doing that? The cost of heating is killing us all. Here in Ireland our government issued a leaflet explaining why the heating costs had risen so much. Apparently it’s because of the war with Ukraine and Russia. Interesting enough they didn’t allocate any blame to the fact that they (the irish government) increased the fuel tax by 600% in one year. 600%??? I mean seriously. So many old folk sitting at home with layers of blankets on them because they can’t afford to turn the heating on. Is that what they worked decades and paid taxes for? I don’t bloody think so. Oh it makes me mad.
The reason you have mould is moisture in the air that you need to get rid of. Older houses were more draughty but this helped to remove air moisture. Our houses are so well insulated these days that the moisture tends not to be dispelled. We also have a 1930 cottage which until about a year ago had the same problems everyone else is facing. We had stopped up all the draughty spots and insulated but this led to mould in areas where there is little to no air flow and also to condensation on the inside of windows which by the way are relatively new. The answer for us was to fit a PIV unit. This stands for Positive Input Ventilation. Almost instantly we noticed the difference. The window condensation was gone within a couple of days and we have completely eliminated all mould growth (after cleaning away any that was there prior to fitting the PIV). The manufacturers say you need an electrician to fit one hardwired in. However, I contacted the company we bought ours from who admitted that it will run quite happily off a 13 amp socket fitted with the appropriate fuse. Most people don’t have a 13 amp socked in their loft (where the PIV is fitted) so that why they say you need an electrician – we did have a socket already in ours so we just used that. I fitted the PIV myself in under and hour which was really easy. Honesty, if you have the kind of problems shown in this article, a PIV is what is needed to fix it. I still think the insulation is a good idea though as it will help keep the house warmer.
The problem you are suffering is too much humidity in the air and cold spots that are below the dew point. When the warm moist air hits the cold spots the water condenses onto that surface. The PIV systems people are talking about pull in cold air from the outside that is lower humidity then it’s warmed up and it pulls some of the humidity out of the air and will push some of the existing air out of the house via any gaps. Other people have talked about dehumidifiers. These are quite good and will produce a little heat in addition to pulling out water out of the air, but the do cost a fair bit to run. The problem with insulation on the walls is the temperature will drop behind the insulation and you could then end up with interstitial condensation. This is why people use moisture barriers on the warm side of insulation to reduce the passage of moist air into the insulation. Things to be wary of. Drying clothes inside on rads Showers Boiling kettles Cooking. If you are going to dry clothes indoors then a dehumidifier is a must and will dry them quicker anyway. Shower get a big extractor fan not one of the small wall based ones an in line one and make sure your door to the bathroom has plenty of gaps to let air in. If the air can’t get in easily then it won’t extract much air. Boiling kettles, when you’ve used it poor cold water into the kettle to stop it steaming. Cooking, make sure your extractor fan works and if it dosnt go to the outside then get one fitted that does. A. Internal venting one is no use.
Mate – good luck with that. But there’s fundamentals here. Just like high-priced Skiing and Athletic gear manufacturers have spent millions developing “wicking” of moisture away from the body ( not always succeeding either) is because YOU HAVE TO HAVE AN AIR FLOW THAT TAKES THE DAMP AWAY. …by trickle, or combinations of material, or studying air-flow in closed containers. You have to address the differentials between 2, 3 or 5 materials, that are in proximity, in changing air conditions in your badly built house. You are not really solving the fundamental of mould growth by sticking that aerated plastic carpet on your walls. You might get lucky and create a small improvement – but it’s not a solution. The solution is hidden behind your plaster, batons, cold-bridges, trapped areas and bad building techniques….Always remember – mould spores can wreak havoc with young kid’s lungs – and adult’s.
I think you need a decent dehumidifier, those moisture traps are useless your not getting the water out the air, Charlie DIY does a article on this. Use a proper plug in dehumidifier and you will see results.. yes chimney would be a cold spot but without taking the water out the air it will just condensate elsewhere
Your main issue is humidity, and that is best handled by installing an air exchange or dehumidifier. The starting point is to purchase a cheap humidity meter so you can quantify the problem. The wall insulation has itself not solved the problem, but rather it has solved the consequences of the problem in a certain area of the house.
I doubt if the problem is solved. It will just form behind the product, out of sight until it accumulates to the point where it escapes from the wet wall. Condensation will be discouraged at the treated surface but will gather at other points that are below the dew point. No product that is affordable will do much at that thickness! The solution: dehumidify, ventilate when frosty, add heat when possible, expose external walls, keep air moving at the surface. Better still, insulate externally and vent the chimney.😊
My home is well insulated, inside and out. I’ve used Wallrock thermal liner and cavity wall insulation, have extractor fans in the bathroom and kitchen. The house now warms quickly and stays warm but I still had window condensation and also condensation dripping from exposed chromed pipes in the bathroom. I purchased a recommended (Russell Hobbs) dehumidifier and now regularly take 6-8 litres of water out of the air daily. All condensation is gone. For me it was the way to go.
dehumidifiers are good and not very expensive to run. Its a common problem particularly in bedrooms . Lots of “water” produced overnight with little or no ventilation but mainly the door is closed making things much worse. Opposite with kitchens and bathrooms where doors should be kept closed and extraction fans fitted
This will not solve the problem. The moisture will condense somewhere in your house overnight. You probably have extremely poor air quality indoors. humidity meter £20 open your windows at least once a day open window after shower open window after cooking buy a dehumidifier. Insulating everywhere is excellent but if you don’t then ventilate you will be maintaining extremely poor air quality and will suffer more respiratory diseases/headaches/poor sleep etc.,.
Control of condensation is a complex problem and in this instance I doubt whether the thin foam panel will be effective. Principally, what is necessary is to increase the insulation so that the surface temperature is above the dew point and stop the air bound moisture from then getting to the point where condensation will occur. The suface temperature of this foam panel might be above the dew point but the vapour will condense out within the wall construction (including the panel) and could potentially dislodge the original plaster on the wall. I am afraid that the system used falls into the category of snake oil.
Wie have in germany something called: Ytong Multipor Ytong is the Brand and Multipor is the Produktname. This stuff is awesome. I used it in a wet Basement. This stuff is so good for thermal insulation. The best thing about it isn’t the thermal insulation, but rather the fact that it can absorb an enormous amount of water and moisture. The wall underneath can still breathe completely and is open to diffusion. Mold is not possible because the PH value is too high. Combined with automatic ventilation or occasional ventilation with an open window, Multipor is unbeatable. This is the Ferarri under the diffusion-open insulation in Germany.
Had exactly the same problem,lost all my run of robes,moved new robes to inside wall no more problems,outside walls are the problem unless you do what you have done,also having problem in the kitchen,stuck insulation behind outside wall units,also if you tile the floors always put a moisture barrier on concrete floor before tiling with insulation as we’ll as the floor gets realy cold in winter causing damp to rise
Erfurt make a 7mm thick XPS panel that is more rigid than this stuff (and about the same dimensions otherwise), costs about 23 quid for 4 square meters, and you can put the adhesive on with a brush which makes the job much simpler for a DIYer, and they perform great. These look like they will work well if you can hide them or plasterboard over the top of them (but if you were doing that I don’t know why you wouldn’t just use XPS or PU-backed plasterboard). The Erfurt XPS panels are fire retardant treated and you can paint over them directly or just put lining paper over and paint or paper that. I’ve only used them for ceilings in a trouble spot, but they’ve been great for that and should work fairly well used on a wall here or there.
Chimney stacks must have air flow/ventilation. If you block up fireplaces you MUST install air vents where the fireplace was to allow air in into the stack. Seal a stack up and it just becomes a damp festering void, and that moisture will penetrate the brickwork, and hey presto – damp/mould on the internal walls.
I would spray the mold cleaner onto a cloth to clean. A vacuum could push mold spores into the air as they are microscopic. Use gloves eye protection and a mask when doing this. My thoughts, you have dampness build up. This comes from your breath. Get a dehumidifier because the humidity will still continue to increase and find new places to condensate. It does seem like a solution for areas like cold outside walls which I am considering.
Another 6 percent raise this Jan in year 2023, stated because of the problems of the east. I have an idea why not just stay out of the east and not rock the boat/fan and fuel the flames, Ukraine is now up shits creak and theres a genocide being committed in what was formerly a country called Palestine now known as Gaza, a small remnant left only soon to be all Israel because of the ethnic cleansing again. All this chaos whilst the oil companies/barons make record breaking profits. We all know working society is deliberately kept at the right level of poverty inorder to keep it working/distracted adequately. Anyway back to topic, im consideribg using Gtec slimline profiles with PIR backed plaster board, shouldn’t take too much space.
Everyone talking about how he should reduce the humidity in the house are missing the point – he probably knows this! This article is more to show this really good, simple product which we can insulate our external walls with and would stop the water vapour condensing on the wall, which the mould then grows on.
As lots of people have already commented the problem is the Relative Humidity/amount of water in the air, not because of a cold wall. The reason you didn’t get mould when you had the house at a steady 21 degrees C is because warm air can hold MUCH more water than colder air. Look up so “Relative Humidity” charts for reference, a Relative Humidity of 90% at 21C is massively different to 90% at 10C. Theres nothing wrong with insulating a cold wall & it may or may not stop the water condensation behind the wardrobes but that water will need to drop out of the air somewhere once RH reaches a certain level & it will just do that on the next coldest surfaces unless you get rid of the actual water via ventilation or dehumidifying. Most people will recommend a PIV but personally I prefer not to pump cold air at outdoor winter temperatures into my house so I always use Heat Recovery Units & I also have a couple of single room dehumidifiers on standby just in case they are needed.
PIV unit……!!!!!! We had all of these issues. Had all manor of things done to try and combat it to no avail. Wasting money and not good for your moral. Had a damp surveyor in and he advised a PIV unit and constant flow extractors in the bathroom and kitchen. Literally overnight condensation cured!!! We are totally amazed to say the least but more importantly relieved