Cold bedroom - over integral garage!

UserX

I moved house a couple of years ago and one of our bedrooms is above the integral garage. It gets extremely cold! Not helped by the fact that it's set into the roofspace so much of the wall is tile-hung externally. The house is a 1970s property and the cavity walls are insulated. Unfortunately the bedroom in question has 3 external walls to add to its burden

The room is going to be empty for a while soon, which presents me with a good opportunity to do some remedial work. However, my budget isn't big, and I'm unable to DIY it.

There is just one wall which is big enough and flat enough to consider dry lining and I wondered if that would help a little. It's on a west-facing well, so probably the coldest of the lot. (The north facing wall is very small and sheltered by virtue of the fact it's only a couple of metres away from my neighbour's house!)

I also wondered if it would be worthwhile to have someone take up the carpet & floorboards and insulate under the floor - ie between the garage ceiling and bedroom floor - or to get somene to put some insulation directly onto the garage celing....whichever is likely to be cheapest/most cost effective I guess!

I have been advised that it wouldn't be a good idea to add insulation under the roof tiles partly because it will cause damp and partly because it would be a big, expensive job anyway.

Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, nuggets of advice?

Doozergirl

The primary cause of heat loss is through the roof, so it might be expensive in comparison to walls and floor, but it is where the vast majority of heat is lost. It would be better to save to have the roof done. If the cavities are already insulated then there is little point adding extra.

Floorboards up and insualtion laid between will help some, but not make a noticeable difference without an insulated roof.

Insulating the roof correctly will not cause damp. I think you should choose an advisor who knows what they are talking about.

Stevie_Palimo

You could try Thermal liner on the walls :-


What is Thermal Liner?



Thermal liner is basically a thin material that is used to help maintain heat in a room. The Thermal liner is made from wood fibres interwoven with durable textile fibres. This gives you is a very strong, flexible material that if attached to the walls, is said to increase the energy efficiency of the room in question.

UserX

Doozergirl wrote: »

Insulating the roof correctly will not cause damp. I think you should choose an advisor who knows what they are talking about.

I contacted the Energy Adviceline and the person I spoke to there expressed concern about whether adding insulation in the roof space (such as it is) would cause more problems than it solved. They put me in touch with 2 companies 'locally' (not that either was on my doorstep!) specialising in insulation and so on and they both said that it would more than likely create a problem with damp because of the mansard roof.

If you are able to point me in the direction of 'someone (else!) who knows what they are talking about' I will willingly speak to other people.

In the short-term though I am also still open to other suggestions :rotfl:

UserX

I'm interested to know a bit more about thermal liner - is it likely to be as efficient as dry lining?

smifffy1989

We had a really similar situation!

We have recently insulated and overboard the ceiling of the garage and that has helped.

Doozergirl

UserX wrote: »

I contacted the Energy Adviceline and the person I spoke to there expressed concern about whether adding insulation in the roof space (such as it is) would cause more problems than it solved. They put me in touch with 2 companies 'locally' (not that either was on my doorstep!) specialising in insulation and so on and they both said that it would more than likely create a problem with damp because of the mansard roof.

If you are able to point me in the direction of 'someone (else!) who knows what they are talking about' I will willingly speak to other people.

In the short-term though I am also still open to other suggestions :rotfl:

You don't need an insulation company, you need a builder or indeed, roofer, with knowledge of building regulations. Use the FMB 'find a builder' service which will find you builders who have a conscience.

Just inserting insulation into the space will cause a problem, but redoing the roof with correct ventilation space is far superior to the current roof setup and solve most of the problem. Not cheap, but you already know that. It would help to quantify it though.

blogger57

Just a thought on your floor. It sounds like you have a timber floor suspended on joists that are accessible from the garage. I would be inclined to put PIR thermal insulation boards between these joists if you can easily access them from underneath in the garage. Often with suspended floors it is not just the loss of heat via conduction but also the huge draughts that can get in if the floor or the skirting has gaps. Also many people tend to be more sensitive to cold feet so even a warm room with a cold floor can still feel cold.

Would agree that the roof need sorting as a first step.

DRP

We had a similar experience in the bathroom of our previous (victorian) house - 3 external walls and a very shallow roof so not much insulation could fit in there.

We researched lining and insulating the walls but in the end the cheapest and quickest solution was to reexamine the heating requirements - we bought a radiator with double the output of the existing one and it solved the problem immediately - no fuss, no redecorating etc.

Might be worth considering instead of or in addition to improving the insulation.

DeanMB

First I think you need to look at which factor actually makes the room cold - roofspace or garage?

Do you have other rooms on that floor in the roofspace? Are they warm? If so, I'd be tempted to board your garage ceiling with Kingspan or something similar as the garage is the only varying factor.

Alternatively, as above you could just shell out more on heating and increase rad output.

wallbash

With the guys who would look at the problem from the garage/floor first.
Why is the room cold, forget the roof , insulating the roof will only keep the room warm AFTER its warm .
The room is cold because of the garage not because of the roof.
Insulate the garage roof / bedroom floor first.