Wall insulation in Tarrant Monkton

Cob, and what it will and will not take. A cob wall cannot be filled and must not be sealed. Where it needs insulating, the lining is vapour open throughout: wood fibre board bedded in lime, finished in a lime plaster, with no plastic sheet anywhere in the build up. It performs less per millimetre than a plastic foam board, and it is the only build up that leaves the wall able to dry.

What we would talk you out of. Insulated plasterboard, PIR, Celotex or Kingspan against a Tarrant Monkton cob or rubble wall, and any coating that seals the outside face. Cement render on cob is the same mistake made from the other side. If the answer for your cottage is draughtproofing, better curtains and a warm floor rather than a lining, we will say so.

Brick and flint solid walls. A nine inch brick wall or a flint and brick banded one in Tarrant Monkton has no cavity to fill either. A hard fired brick wall in good condition will take a more conventional internal wall insulation build up than cob will, boards on battens or a timber stud, but the vapour question still has to be answered rather than ignored. External wall insulation, EWI, is the other route on a solid wall and here it is a conservation area application rather than a given.

The junctions, which decide it. Reveals at windows and doors, the threshold, the floor junction, the eaves and the joist ends. In an old Tarrant Monkton wall the joist ends are the risk: the lining makes the masonry around them colder and damper, so they stay ventilated rather than being boxed in. A shallow reveal takes a thin aerogel board.

Cold bridging. Anywhere the lining stops, at a chimney breast, a party wall or a ceiling, is a thermal bridge, and that is where the dew point lands and black mould starts.

Cavity fill on the modern houses. Where a Tarrant Monkton house has a proper cavity, bonded polystyrene bead or blown mineral wool through a drilled pattern, holes made good in a matched mortar, usually a single day. If the borescope shows a wet cavity, a narrow or bridged one, an outer leaf cracking or blown, or a fill that has failed and slumped, we say so instead of quoting.

Ventilation. Trickle vents, a working extract in the kitchen and bathroom, and air bricks kept clear. Approved Document F sets the expectation, and in a house with earth walls the moisture has to have a way out.

Thomas finds out what the walls are made of before he prices anything. If there may be a cavity, he drills a single small hole and looks inside with a borescope. With solid brick, flint or cob he checks for damp first. The price is his, and any cavity fill goes through a registered installer with a CIGA certificate.

The quote for a Tarrant Monkton house sets out the survey, the insulation system and its thickness, the making good at every window and door, any vents or fans needed, and the waste. Lining is done one room at a time, in an order agreed with you, so the rest of the house carries on as normal.

Each Tarrant Monkton room is sealed while we work, cleaned at the end of the day and usable overnight. If old plaster lets go over a bigger area than expected, you are sent a photo and a cost, and nothing more is stripped until you agree.

Lining an unlisted house on the inside needs no planning permission. An external system alters the look of the house, and the village lies in the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area, so confirm with Dorset Council first, starting with the council heritage pages. The parish has twenty seven listed entries, the Church of All Saints among them, and on a listed building consent covers internal work too. When a thermal element is renovated, building control applies under regulation 23, and Part L sets the U value to reach.

Phone us; the form is slower. If damp or mould has turned up on an outside wall since it was filled or lined, it usually traces back to rain crossing the cavity through the fill, or warm indoor air meeting a cold spot where the lining stops.

Leave the lining in place, above all on an earth or rubble wall, because ripping it off badly does more damage than the damp. Keep the room warm and aired. The first visit tests the wall to find which it is before anything is removed. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we are on a job and miss you, we call you back.

Call now: 07435 839745

Cob is subsoil, chalk, straw and water, built up in lifts and left to dry, and there are walls of it in this valley that have stood for centuries. They last because they can always lose moisture. Rain wets the outside and it evaporates. Cooking and washing push moisture into the inside face and it passes into the wall and away.

Line the inside with a foil faced board and a sealed vapour control layer and you stop half of that exchange. The wall behind the board is now colder, because the heat from the room no longer reaches it, and it is wetter, because nothing is drying it from that side. Moisture gathers behind the board, which is interstitial condensation, worst at the bottom of the wall and around any timber built into it. Cob that stays wet loses its strength, and joist ends sitting in wet earth rot.

So a breathable build up is not a preference here, it is the specification. Wood fibre and lime, no plastic, ventilation dealt with at the same time, and honesty about how much you gain. Heat loss through an earth wall is real, but the payback on a breathable lining is slower than a salesman will tell you and it will not transform an EPC on its own. On some cottages the right advice is a modest lining on one or two walls. On others it is to leave them alone and seal the draughts instead.

Nearby places we also cover for wall insulation, with straight-line distances from Tarrant Monkton, and the other trades we offer in Tarrant Monkton itself.

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