Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation Re: Cold Walls 4Aug 01, 2019 8:02 pm creztor No cladding. Blocks are hollow and would be accessible from roof but youd have to lift some iron to gain access. Theres render on outside but other than that just the block wall which the rooms are on. Naturally skirting near floors but its just hollow blocks with nothing more thsn paint/render. To me and as you said its clearly the mass of that south wall which is the problem. It gets cold and stays cold coz rooms are kept closed. Lounge has a wood fire and master bedroom is north facing so it is nowhere near as cold despite the same block designed wall as it gets sun all day. I was thinking some kind of internal wall/structure that goes over the block wall. This could be filled insulation etc. Downside is the rooms would lose space with the added wall. I considered curtains on the walls to see if it helped block the cold. During spring etc the rooms are fine. Enough sun to make the walls not icy cold. Given there is no internal cladding, I asked about cornices, architraves and skirtings because I wondered whether you could add a lining without having to change all those transitional elements. Unfortunately, it sound like you can't. The good news, with hollow blocks you will be able to blow insulation into the wall at a later time when you can afford it - but insulation is only part of the story. The problem you have is that in order for thermal mass to work in your favour, you need to get heat into the mass, which will dissipate back into the room later. As the walls get no sun, the only way to introduce heat is from your heating inside the house. You said you have the doors to these rooms closed, but perhaps you should consider opening them to get some heat into the rooms, and thus into the walls. If you do that, you will not want to line the inside of the walls, as then you will be working against your intentions. However, you might consider insulating the outside of the wall by attaching an external wall board, which may or may not be cheaper that the in-wall insulation - or even batts behind a false wall of painted plywood. If any of that is still too expensive, then you might want to isolate the chill from the inside of the walls by covering them as you have suggested, but perhaps with hanging rugs (think tapestries) or perhaps even fixing carpet to the walls. You might be able to find some secondhand that would work. creztor That wall is south facing and in winter gets basically no sun. Nothing can be done to change that. Sun is so low in sky that theres no sun or very limited to early morning or late afternoon. BTW, if the walls are getting sun in the morning and afternoon, that suggest the eaves or something else could be getting in the way; but of course, changing eave coverage is a serious undertaking. That said, anything can be manipulated. For example, if you had a bit of room, you could use secondhand mirrors, shiny steel, or even white painted board to redirect some light (and thus heat) onto those walls. Depends how much direct sun it gets. Is there any shading (eaves or trees)? If the sun hits a window directly it doesn't matter too much if it's double or single… 1 10106 Hi guys, I want to butt a concrete vegetable garden bed against a concrete build up of a carport. It will be a 700mm high wall about 120mm thick and I will run a 12mm rio… 0 864 Render your bathroom walls, two opinions versus the one, makes you wonder. 3 4194 |