Plasterboard thermal bridging

piperm87

Had our bedroom walls plasterboarded and skimmed over past few years and now the rooms get cold very quickly. Ive borrowed a thermal camera and im getting alot of coldness and thermal bridging on external walls as per photo

Is there anything i can do in the shirt term to help the walls keep warm during the cold snaps? Its making the rooms very hard to heat up and what heat does build up is getting pulled out by the walls. 

stuart45

You could have convection currents behind the boards.

piperm87

Wouldnt surprise me. The plasterer i got in to do the work moved to Cornwall this summer so im out on my own on that front. 

Ive tried extending the curtains on the window walls which is helping a little but the other walls are still exposed and not getting warm.  Also got bales of loft insulation coming Saturday as that only has the old old rockwool installed and is loosing alot of heat out

chris_n

stuart45 said:

You could have convection currents behind the boards.

That's what it looks like to me too. Dot and dab plasterboard can often create a 'plasterboard tent'. Once air gets behind it unless there is a continuous bead of adhesive around the perimeter the cold air will find its way around adjoining boards.

born_again

What sort of wall is it?

Could fit some internal wall insulation. 

chris_n

born_again said:

What sort of wall is it?

Could fit some internal wall insulation. 

I wouldn't do that without fixing the air leakage first or you will get condensation behind the plasterboard which could then affect floor joists etc and cause a lot of problems. Of course if the plasterboard was removed first and insulation correctly applied and sealed this wouldn't be a problem. 

stuart45

piperm87, could do with a bit more info about the walls. Do you know the construction of the walls? How old is the property?

ThisIsWeird

piperm87 said:

Had our bedroom walls plasterboarded and skimmed over past few years and now the rooms get cold very quickly. Ive borrowed a thermal camera and im getting alot of coldness and thermal bridging on external walls as per photo

Is there anything i can do in the shirt term to help the walls keep warm during the cold snaps? Its making the rooms very hard to heat up and what heat does build up is getting pulled out by the walls. 

Could you explain exactly what was done, please?

Are these bedrooms upstairs or down? Age of house, type of wall construction? And, what was done by the plasterer?

What was on the walls before - what was removed for this job? What was exposed underneath? How were the new 'boards attached?

piperm87

Hi all.

Sorry.  Its a 1960s detatched property. The walls were dot and dabbed with 12.5mm plasterboard. They are the upstairs bedrooms. The living/dining rooms were done the same but they dont seem to get as cold as the bedrooms - possibly due to poor insulation in loft space.  Im not sure if the old plaster was ripped down before being plasteeboarded as we wernt here when the work was done. 

stuart45

Is the cavity insulated?

ThisIsWeird

piperm87 said:

Hi all.

Sorry.  Its a 1960s detatched property. The walls were dot and dabbed with 12.5mm plasterboard. They are the upstairs bedrooms. The living/dining rooms were done the same but they dont seem to get as cold as the bedrooms - possibly due to poor insulation in loft space.  Im not sure if the old plaster was ripped down before being plasteeboarded as we wernt here when the work was done. 

So block or brick wall construction?

What a shame the opportunity wasn't taken to use insulated p'board on the external walls. Yes, you'd lose an inch or two, but the wall insulation value would have been transformed. And far more so than cavity insulation, and with none of the potential drawbacks.