Insulating your home in Nieuwegein

For me, insulating a home is usually not a job on its own. I insulate as part of a renovation, from the inside, at the moment something is open anyway: a wall, an attic, a floor. That is the cheapest moment, because you do not pay again for demolition and making good. It belongs with renovation, and it ties in with whatever else you plan to do with the space.

If you only want the cavity filled or a crawl space insulated from below, ask me. Then you will hear whether I do it. That is a different job from the one I describe here.

Insulating a wall on the inside

For an inside wall I build timber battens in front of the existing wall, fill them with insulation and close it off with foil on the warm side. After that boards can go on, and then plaster, tiles or paint. That is also how I built up a bathroom: timber battens, insulation with foil, green moisture-resistant boards and behind them the copper pipes and the concealed cistern.

There are three drawbacks I mention up front. You lose space in the room: battens, insulation and board together easily take up around ten centimetres. Cold bridges at the connections often stay cold. And the wall gets colder, so if there is damp in it, you want to know before the insulation goes on. That is why I look at the wall first: whether it is dry, whether there is mould and where the damp comes from.

When is it a good idea? When you cannot, or are not allowed to, insulate the outside, or when you are renovating room by room anyway. Then insulating in a wall that is open anyway is no extra intervention.

Insulating an attic

An unused attic can be cold and draughty. A bedroom or study cannot. In an attic conversion I therefore insulate from the inside, between and under the rafters, and finish it airtight. You give up headroom, and the connections at the gutter and the ridge need the most attention.

If the tiles are coming off anyway, that is the moment to do it from the outside: you keep your attic height and the layer runs through without breaks. What else I do on a roof is on the roofing page. If a roof window is going into the attic, it is best to do insulation and window in one go, see roof window installation.

An attic conversion usually gets stuck on headroom and the stairs. Thick insulation costs height. I count that in beforehand and choose the thickness that fits your plans.

A floor that is open

Sometimes a timber floor is open, with the joists showing. That happens in a renovation, but also after water damage or rot. Then I lay insulation between the joists and build the floor back up with a new subfloor. This is insulation in an open floor. It is not the same as insulating through the crawl space.

For a floor that failed because of a leak, the approach is under water damage repair.

Insulating and ventilating

If you insulate without ventilating, your home gets damp. A home that is more airtight gets less air by itself, and moisture then settles on the coldest spot left. Often that is where the roof meets the wall, or behind a new wall.

That is why ventilation belongs in the same conversation as insulation. I raise it on every job, and if a system has to be added, I say so before the work starts.

Where insulation makes the biggest difference

That depends on your home. An uninsulated roof loses a lot of heat. A cold floor or a draughty facade can matter more in your house. I look at what suits your home and start with whatever is open anyway. That way you do not pay for the measure that gives you the least.

Subsidy

There are national schemes for insulation. A well-known one is the ISDE, which RVO runs. Read the conditions on the RVO page about the ISDE, which is in Dutch, because they differ per scheme and change. I do not promise that my work falls under a scheme. So do not count on a subsidy before you have read it yourself.

Finishing and what comes next

After the insulation comes the finishing. For a new wall that means boards and plastering, and in a bathroom tiles and the rest of bathroom renovation. If you also want a ceiling lowered to hide pipes, that runs in the same job, see suspended ceiling.

How to start

Send me a few photos of the space through the contact page, and write what you plan to do. I tell you what I would do and whether insulating fits your plan.