Cottage refurbishment, insulation.

Need Help

I am refurbishing a cottage which was built about 70 years ago.
The walls are solid stone.
Bedroom floors suspended timber with only gravel underneath. Rotten and need to be removed.
Living room concrete.

I am looking for suggestions on:
(1) Insulation and dry lining of wall’s. What insulation and what thickness.
(2) What would you suggest for bedroom floors, wish to have laminate floor finish.
(3) How do I insulate living room floor, required finish: semi solid wood.

Any idea welcome….

bertie1

Need Help wrote: »

I am refurbishing a cottage which was built about 70 years ago.
The walls are solid stone.
Bedroom floors suspended timber with only gravel underneath. Rotten and need to be removed.
Living room concrete.

I am looking for suggestions on:
(1) Insulation and dry lining of wall’s. What insulation and what thickness.
(2) What would you suggest for bedroom floors, wish to have laminate floor finish.
(3) How do I insulate living room floor, required finish: semi solid wood.

Any idea welcome….

I have a 100 year old cottage that we renovated a few years ago , used 50mm insulated slabs on the stone walls & 50 mm insulated slabs screwed to the ceilings with 6" of fibergalss insulation above the ceiling slabs again

We had the same problem with the floors , rotten timber & in the kitchen there was concrete but we just broke it up with a cango ( you will probably find that concrete isn't too hard or too thick & once you start it will fall away , put down plastic/ radon barrier ,kingspan insulation and poured new floors throughout. We put floating timer floor ( semi solid on our bedroom floors when the job was finished). Our cottage is really comfortable & easy to heat now

Poor Uncle Tom

You need to get a good AT to help you, if you can't find one an Architect will do. Work out exactly what your needs are space wise for your renovations.

I would say that if you are going for a laminated finish to the existing timber floors it would be best to remove all and replace with solid slab finish incorporating radon barrier and sump, insulations, heating pipework, etc. I would remove your Living room floor as well and replace with the above.

Are you sure the walls are 'solid stone'? If the cottage was build around the 1930's it's likely to be done in solid 9" blocks and could have a poured tar DPC. Or the walls could be shuttered 9" concrete using sea gravel, but at that age would be rarely done in solid stone.

I would advise you to talk to a BER assesor to discuss the insulations for your needs.

gears

I wouldn't recomend dry lining as you will be leaving yourself open to a host of problems from condensation forming on the interior of the stone walls.
A better approach would be to externally insulate the building as in this article from Construct Ireland which details how a rubble stone cottage in Cavan was turned into an A2 Rated home.

Builderfromhell

I agree with gears.
External insulation will give you a very comfortable house with no cold bridging or condensation. You will also end up with a clean plastered exterior.
Downside is it can cost in the region of 120 euro per square metre in the mid west. That includes insulation, accessories and special breathable plaster.

gears

I have heard it can be expensive ok, but as it's included in the HES grant scheme you should be able to get a good list of installers on the SEI site so you can shop around and then there's also the grant of €4000 towards it.