Insulating solid brick walls

Hi,

Our home is a 1920's bungalow, part of the house has solid walls, the other part has a cavity, which has been filled. Rooms with cavity filled walls are comfortable, but the rooms with solid walls can get extremely cold in winter.

We plan to tackle the insulating of the 3 rooms with solid walls over the course of the next 12 months, one room at a time, starting with the front bedroom.

This will involve stripping out lath & plaster, taking the wall back to the brick. There are two external walls that need stripped back and insulated, the dimensions are 4.8m x 3m and 4.5m x 3m, with the smaller wall having a bay window, the windows are 1.7m x 1.4m and two at 1m x 0.5m. It was also suggested that that the ceiling be lowered, to save having to tackle the lath & plaster ceiling.

I was quoted £3,850 by a local joiner, he reckons it's a 7 day job for two joiners, which I fail to see how that's possible. He quoted £2500 for labour, £1200 for materials, £150 for a skip, and that did not include taping and filling plasterboard, which he said would be another £800~1200, so almost £5k! :eek:

I indicated prior to quote I would probably do the strip out myself, he said if I did he would knock £500 off his quote. He proposed to start the job in 3-4 weeks, and didn't give any impression that he didn't want the work.

I'm going to get another quote, but realistically, how much should I be looking at for this work?

If I do the strip out, I was thinking that it should take;

Day 1 - strap out new ceiling and walls (x2)
Day 2 - fit insulation boards and plasterboard
Day 3 - fit skirting and window facings
Day 4 - shelf out alcove cupboard and snagging.

Does that sound unreasonable?


This initial quote has left me seriously considering tackling the work myself.

If I were to tackle this myself, I feel relatively confident about strapping out the walls and fitting the plasterboard, the ceiling will be more of a challenge, but I think I should be ok, but I do worry about being able to fit the skirting and window facings to a good standard.

If I were to invest in a good mitre saw, should I be able to get decent results?

The loft is already insulated, so do I need to insulate the lowered ceiling, or just plasterboard?

Should the insulation boards butt up to the brick, or should there be a gap between the brick and insulation?

Also, if after starting the job I found that it was way beyond my skill level, would getting a joiner in at that stage bump the price up even higher?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks.