Plaster Removal / Insulating / Replastering

jprodd

Hello.

We have a period house with solid walls, with a couple of the bedrooms (upstairs) suffering from cold external walls in the winter. For each bedroom only two of the walls are external and I'm considering having the plaster removed from these, and fitting insulation before replastering.

I've had a quote from a local company who do a lot of work in period houses and do come recommended. The smaller of the two rooms weighs in at about £1400 inclusive labour/materials etc. Estimated time is 3 - 3.5 days. This includes removing the plaster back to the brick, battening the wall, installing celotex within the battens, plaster boarding and reskimming over this. This is for two walls of quite a small room, total surface area of about 11 - 12m2. Including a thin grade celotex, I would guess materials shouldn't be more than £150.

I know there are quite a few stages in this (and time spent leaving things tidy outside the room each day) but for a pretty small area this does seem a lot.

We're based in Hamphire.

If anyone has experience of having this kind of work done or getting quotes I'd be interested to know how this compares.

Thanks.

Topplasterer

Hello
From what you have described this seems a very high quote, not quite sure why the plaster has too removed back to the brick, the procedure is very simple; celotex boards/CLS studwork then boards on top, re-position your sockets etc then skim walls, celotex boards 8/4 £20 ish plasterboards 8/4 £6 CLS is very cheap, its difficult to comment on a job that you have'nt seen but it would take me 2 days to do the small room at a price of about £400-500 but I would not remove the plaster

jprodd

Thanks for your thoughts. We decided to remove the plaster to limit the amount of additional wall thickness - would interfere with some window mouldings etc. I've asked how much the plaster removal is adding to the quote.

oxfordite

I take it that you are using 1" celotex? And you have considered what will happen to any condensation with this improved wall insulation? (it will now condense in larger quantities on the coldest surfaces remaining). Have you done a test hole in the plaster to calculate how far the insulation will project in to the rooms after completion?
We are busy doing this, partly to combat the cold bridging of concrete finlock gutters at the top of bedroom walls. Not sure about pricing - the work is fiddly, especially if you are able to insulate all around the window recess (we have double glazed windows). Now, grants were available for doing this in houses with solid walls - worth checking.
My comment would be thus: if you are going to this much trouble, consider fitting Fermacell boards (10mm) instead of plasterboard. Fermacell can be ordered from any builders merchant, e.g. Travis Perkins, and has several advantages: more environmentally friendly, racking strength (you can put up shelving supported solely by the fermacell without drilling through everything in to the wall behind), or a picture on a screw fixing taking 30Kg per screw (really quite strong), and it has resistance to damage from knocks saving you on repair where plaster board is flimsy stuff.
Make sure to get fermacell filler to seal joints between boards, and, if it will be a neat job, get fermacell surface treatment - no need to plaster skim, just smooth the surface with this, very quick.

jprodd

Thanks, something to consider especially now I'm thinking of doing this myself (up to a final skim if I choose to use normal plasterboard). For anyone interested, the Energy Saving Trust website has some useful guides which describe the different methods and considerations for insulating solid walls.

vivajustice

You do realize you can cut out the stud work and just get insulated plasterboard? Its normal plasterboard with a insulation backing on it. Then dot and dab these to your walls job done.

That seems a very high quote you got there if only two walls (the external ones) are to be worked on.