Advice needed - How this entrance can be thermally insulated?
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Just to throw my 2p in....
Doug71 hit it on the head.
Rather than sucking out moisture from the bricks, which is an endless task in the winter, you need to vandex the brick walls and floor areas. ( its a tanking slurry ) and then as said previously, use pir backed insulation on the walls, probably use board fix expanding foam. For the floor, after vandex, I'd look to lay a coat of latex floor levelling to the desired height ( i.e 18mm chipboard plus 50mm pir =68mm ) if needed, chip up those tiles to gain the depth for the vandex and latex. Once latex has gone off, insulate and floating chipboard to get you to existing height, then floor covering over the join.
You can use board fix foam on the floor pir and chipboard if you want, and to carefully fill any gaps.
Worth saying that whatever you do will be a compromise..... there MIGHT not be a dpc between the brickwork and interior leaf, meaning damp can come through from outside. Hopefully there is.
Doug71 hit it on the head.
Rather than sucking out moisture from the bricks, which is an endless task in the winter, you need to vandex the brick walls and floor areas. ( its a tanking slurry ) and then as said previously, use pir backed insulation on the walls, probably use board fix expanding foam. For the floor, after vandex, I'd look to lay a coat of latex floor levelling to the desired height ( i.e 18mm chipboard plus 50mm pir =68mm ) if needed, chip up those tiles to gain the depth for the vandex and latex. Once latex has gone off, insulate and floating chipboard to get you to existing height, then floor covering over the join.
You can use board fix foam on the floor pir and chipboard if you want, and to carefully fill any gaps.
Worth saying that whatever you do will be a compromise..... there MIGHT not be a dpc between the brickwork and interior leaf, meaning damp can come through from outside. Hopefully there is.
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Hi a damp wall from condensation will alway be cold. You may want to look at using some sort of membrane if you insulate it. These guys are quite good for technical advice
Home • Ecohome Insulation
Home • Ecohome Insulation
Seascaper
Established Member
Hello,
The letter box can cause a lot of heat loss. These are and English phenomenon, suggest you block it and put a post box outside, better still a parcel box. There is not much you can do to the brickwork either side, check that the cavity has been cavity filled with insulation material and line with foil backed plasterboard. The floor could be insulated with foil backed material depending on the finished surface. It looks like there are quarry tiles, one could put down a barrier layer even dig up put down some polystyrene and pour concrete over to insulate floor, depends on how much trouble you want to go to. Have you a radiator in the hall, you may need to upgrade the radiator. Have you got room outside for a porch.
Regards
Unless its an internal cavity wall (unlikely) do NOT fill the cavity with insulation, really bad idea, all sorts of problems with interstitial condensation, you have been given some very bodge up advise on this, best bet is to seek professional advice.
You appear to have had an inset rain porch that you have moved the door forwards on. The brickwork will be a little damp but will dry. Your problem is all to do with the floor you basically have a section of your garden path in the hallway it has no insulation in it and is bringing the ground temperature into your hall. As others have said ideally you should have dug it out laid a membrane and jablite or kingspan. The condensation is caused by the warm air from your living space cooling as it passes the section of pathway. I would remove the tiles seal then make a floating floor with jablite kitchen grade chipboard. It’s not the perfect solution but if you do add an exterior porch at a later date I doubt you will have any real problem.
This comes down to doors come in a wide range of quality just like our woodworking machinery, the main difference being they don't come from asia. One way to tell a doors quality is it's stiffness, some you can easily twist and others just sound hollow but the ones I fitted were rockdoors made by GAP Rockdoor | Composite Doors | GAP Ltd .
I think they are around £1800 fitted .
Agreed. OP could take a look at superquilt ot similar, fit battens and staple then counter batten then pir insulation. The superquilt will act as an excellent vapour barrier as well as insulation.
I suspect a couple of things are going on here. As well as insulation a good, small desiccant dehumidifier will remove the damp air. If you have a small unvented room then there is no where for warm, damp air to escape so it condenses on the coldest surface, ie the front door. This condensing process reduces the surrounding temperature. So some sort of vent is needed, possibly one with a dehumidifier sensor in it that you normally fit it bathrooms. Or just a manual vent.
Hello @baldkev
This sound like an interesting approach. However - given how small my now "ex-rain porch" area - if I cover it with something impermeable, would not this just cause any moisture from the walls and ground to travel a bit further into the house and surface on on the original internal plastered walls as well as floor?
Thank you @mikej460. I will keep this in mind.
To the left of this door area there is a staircase which leads to 1st floor with many cubic meters of air to (hopefully) somewhat distribute moisture coming from the porch.
Also, at least for now, I am going to assume that the letter box is going to be my "vent". But if the moisture problem persists for a long time then I now understand that I will have to introduce some sort of active extraction. Don't think I have ever seen another house with extractor fan in the entrance area though, so I may have to start a new fashion trend
Agreed that the letter box is a problem. Problem is - when it comes to selling the house - I am not sure I want to advertise that there is something so wrong with the house that we had to block the letter box.
Thank you. Will keep this in mind.
Cavity walls of the house were filled at some point (according to previous owner).
Based on your and many other comments it looks like the tiles will have to be removed to gains some more depth for insulation.
There is a radiator (about 1 meter from the entrance on the left wall) and it is quite big, but with the current energy prices we can't run it at full power all the time. I understand what you mean though and it looks like its TRV will have to stay fully open for a while, to speedup the drying process.
Yes. I can't believe how screwed up this turned up. Main reason for installing the new door was to avoid having to pay for the whole porch. Live and learn....
Doug71
Established Member
A damp expert (a proper one) once explained to me about how long it can take for walls to dry out and how much water there can be in them.
We were talking very damp old walls so not quite the same but what stuck with me was he said it's similar to leaving a bucket full of water stood in a room and waiting for it to evaporate, which I imagine would take quite a while!
We were talking very damp old walls so not quite the same but what stuck with me was he said it's similar to leaving a bucket full of water stood in a room and waiting for it to evaporate, which I imagine would take quite a while!
To speed it up I highly recommend a dehumidifier, desiccant if its a cold room, ordinary if its warm.
Thank you. Based on what everyone in this thread has said and the bucket example @Doug71 mentioned it looks like a mains powered active dehumidifier is going to be the quickest in this instance. I have not had much success with the passive/chemical ones in the past - they take way too long.
Desiccant (passive) only works well in a cold room or workshop. So you're right to use a mains ordinary one. You can hire them but they do tend to be a but industrial and ott and noisy so best to look online first.
If you want to buy one to use in your workshop or as a very efficient laundry dryer then you need to consider size, noise, whether you want it to self drain or if not what size tank do you need before you can empty it. Which? recommend a
DeLonghi DEX214F but if you have a cold workshop you would be better off with a Meaco DD8L Zambezi which Which? say works very well in both warm and cold rooms.
You could spend a fair bit on insulation, waterproofing etc and end up with a fairly unsatisfactory job. Possibly the best thing to do would be get the installer back and get them to move the door back into the insulated house envelope,you'll lose a bit of space and pay a bit of money but at least it will work.
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How about something like this I have read about them but not used I would use this and super quilt insulation
https://www.vent-axia.com/range/pureair-home
https://www.vent-axia.com/range/pureair-home
This is an interesting contraption. Have not heard of this before. Will keep it in mind. Thank you.
I have borrowed 2 mains powered dehumidifiers from a friend today. My current plan is to extract moisture from the walls and insulate as per earlier suggestions in this thread.
If that does not work then next step (depending on the outcome o dehumidifying) is probably going to be one of more drastic options like PureAir, moving the door back as @Jones suggested earlier or maybe even bring forward the plan of building a new exterior porch.
Seascaper
Established Member
Hello,
Because you have incorporated the exterior walls into the the interior of the house on one of the coldest days of the year, it will take some time and heat to dissipate this coldness and warm it up, especially as you have a good thickness of wall cavity all insulated. It might be worth recording the temperatures to see how it is all be affected by the external or internal temperatures. The exterior bricks which are now internal will also have moisture content so it could feel damp at the moment. Damp and cold feels a lot worse than dry coldness.
Regards
Yes, thank you.
Answers in this thread sort of put my mind at ease explaining that that there is no major issue with the new door as such, but rather the problem was caused by the time of year/weather and location of the new door relative to the inside/outside of the house.
It was also very helpful to learn why I am having so much moisture and feel colder at the moment.
Could you elaborate this part please @Seascaper ?
If I do not have the temperature measurements taken with the old door - how recording of the temperatures with the new door can be leveraged for information?
