Warm / Dry / Clean houses - how should it be done in NZ?

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Warm / Dry / Clean houses - how should it be done in NZ?

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#2945548 23-Jul-2022 10:26

timmmay:

Wall insulation. I had the foam pumped into the walls. It worked ok but made a heck of a mess. Even after repainting it looked a bit odd, it was only after a professional full strip and repaint it looked good. I'm not sure I would do it again. They miss many areas, which we can see in the rooms we took the gib off inside.

For parts of the house we couldn't put Pink Batts we used Insulmax - blown mineral fibre instead of foam. They didn't miss any areas double checking with a flir camera very happy with the install. Touching up the small holes was a pain to get rid of the shadow of the repair when light is angled on the wall but well worth it compared to no insulation.

neb

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#2945579 23-Jul-2022 14:25

rphenix:
double checking with a flir camera very happy with the install

On the subject of thermal cameras, how many people here own one? Is it an entry requirement for geekdom or something? Seems like half the people I know have one...

timmmay

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#2945635 23-Jul-2022 15:10

I've been wanting to rent / borrow / buy a thermal camera for years, but I don't know anyone with one and haven't decided it was worthwhile yet. If anyone in Wellington is willing to share / rent /etc please let me know :) Android phone with USB-C.

darylblake

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#2946108 25-Jul-2022 08:40

TinyTim:

darylblake:

The cost of double glazing my windows would have not really been worth the benefit, unless I was either going to be there longer term.

This is an interesting comment because so many people are double glazing, but when we've looked into it, we decided it would take us decades to get a return through heating savings. (Yes we do have condensation on the windows but it's not a damp house - we face the prevailing wind and have two open fireplaces so ventilation isn't a problem.)

It's a 1920s villa, big family house. When we moved in in the early 2000s it had insulfluff in the ceiling and nothing else. I added a layer of Batts across the whole ceiling, and we've added wall insulation when we've done renovations (about half done now), plus we double glazed the new rooms we added about 10 years ago.

Our big problem is downstairs there's no underfloor access and the walls are concrete with the lining directly attached, so there's no room for insulation there. So the old downstairs rooms (master bedroom and study) are a lot colder than the rest of the house. I guess double glazing those rooms may help but now the kids are older teenagers so our plans are more focused on kicking them out and us moving on than continuing to do the place up. The next family can solve that problem 😀.

Maybe I should elaborate here a little bit. The house was small. And my family was growing. It was clear that we would be planning to sell and move into a larger home. The ventilation helped a lot which kept the house dry. And I had a pretty big heat pump (Which I forgot to mention before). There were also a lot of windows to replace. I imagine it would have been around >$20K at the time to replace all the windows with aluminium/double glazed. If I were staying there longer term I may have made the investment. But for the $ spent to return, so spending on the heat pump, ventilation, + costs of heating + insulation etc, it didn't make enough sense.

gzt

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#2946757 26-Jul-2022 23:32

Interesting article here - includes a composite cork/pvc/vinyl tile product:

https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/129354862/passive-housestyle-benefits-for-30-less-than-the-cost-of-a-new-certified-build

mattwnz

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#2946760 27-Jul-2022 00:59

neb:
Handle9:

If my actual cost, taking into account the cost of capital and opportunity cost, of double glazing is more than the cost of just spending more on my energy bills then it doesn't make economic sense to do the project.

And that pretty much sums up US political thinking, "if we can't make money off it we won't do it". As opposed to the European form, "this is the right thing to do even if it costs us a bit".

If you look at many of the spec houses being built, this is often the attitude of the developers or builders. Despite NZ having some of the highest sqm rate prices in the world, although a lot of that is due to massive inefficiencies. I am amazed at how many brand new internal garages are not installed with insulated garage doors. Despite often insulating the walls and ceiling. It doesn't cost much more to get an insulated door and it is often cheaper and easier to do it in the factory. Although I found retrofitting insulation potentially produces a better insulated door, as you can get into all the crevices, a . Especially when many garages end up being used as another room . Insulating garage doors also cuts down on road noise a lot. At least insulation standards on new builds will be improving, as developers often try to get away with the minimum spec to maximize return. An R rating of over 6 for ceilings is a huge difference, as long as the sparky doesn't make massive holes in the insulation as he installs wiring for downlights.

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timbosan

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#2946987 27-Jul-2022 16:00

So, looping back on the "things to do" topic, I am going to be laying a ground sheet. Questions - is this best done by professionals? If I was to myself, what is the recommendation for the plastic to use? I assume the overlaps needs to be taped down as well as stapled to the posts?

Any other advice?

Kickinbac

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#2947077 27-Jul-2022 19:32

timbosan:
So, looping back on the "things to do" topic, I am going to be laying a ground sheet. Questions - is this best done by professionals? If I was to myself, what is the recommendation for the plastic to use? I assume the overlaps needs to be taped down as well as stapled to the posts?

Any other advice?

You need some 200 or 250mu Black Polythene, its heavy duty so you don’t get holes in it easily. It comes in a variety of sizes but something like 4m wide x 25m or 2m wide x 50m depending on how youwant to layit out. It’s readily available from Bunnings, Mitre 10 etc.
Plus you will need several rolls of 50mm PVC tape to tape the seams and up around the piles.
Remove any sharp rocks etc.

timmmay

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#2947078 27-Jul-2022 19:34

Stake it to the ground I think. Then tape to piles as above.

timbosan

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#2947087 27-Jul-2022 20:06

Kickinbac:
timbosan:

So, looping back on the "things to do" topic, I am going to be laying a ground sheet. Questions - is this best done by professionals? If I was to myself, what is the recommendation for the plastic to use? I assume the overlaps needs to be taped down as well as stapled to the posts?

Any other advice?

You need some 200 or 250mu Black Polythene, its heavy duty so you don’t get holes in it easily. It comes in a variety of sizes but something like 4m wide x 25m or 2m wide x 50m depending on how youwant to layit out. It’s readily available from Bunnings, Mitre 10 etc.
Plus you will need several rolls of 50mm PVC tape to tape the seams and up around the piles.
Remove any sharp rocks etc.

Cool, thanks. Any idea how close to the edges I need to get? Do I need to create a lip around the edges to keep and (and the damp) out?

So taping to the piles makes more sense as its a better seal.

Sounds like a project :-) And something I can post the results of on Geekzone!

dpf81nz

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#2947093 27-Jul-2022 20:24

Cool, thanks. Any idea how close to the edges I need to get? Do I need to create a lip around the edges to keep and (and the damp) out?

So taping to the piles makes more sense as its a better seal.

Sounds like a project :-) And something I can post the results of on Geekzone!

i did it nearly 4 years ago in the middle of summer, I had recently bought the place so the whole area was relatively clear of crap so decided I might aswell do it then. Was a sh*t of a job and i had relatively easy access for the most part, i only had to crawl around on my knees for about 1/3 of it. I did do a lip around the edges, about 15cm high and taped around the piles. Seems to have worked well so far and havent had any water pooling etc

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BlargHonk

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#2947211 28-Jul-2022 09:41

If you get a copy of NZS4246 in Section 8 it specifies how a ground moisture barrier should be installed, along with thickness of sheet, pile taping, overlaps, etc. Well worth a read if you are going to do it yourself.

TheCross

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#2947267 28-Jul-2022 11:07

BlargHonk:

If you get a copy of NZS4246 in Section 8 it specifies how a ground moisture barrier should be installed, along with thickness of sheet, pile taping, overlaps, etc. Well worth a read if you are going to do it yourself.

https://www.ecoinsulation.co.nz/gvb/uploads/NZS-4246-2016-GVB%20Extract.pdf

tweake

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#2947839 29-Jul-2022 13:52

timbosan:

So, looping back on the "things to do" topic, I am going to be laying a ground sheet. Questions - is this best done by professionals? If I was to myself, what is the recommendation for the plastic to use? I assume the overlaps needs to be taped down as well as stapled to the posts?

Any other advice?

sorry for late reply i was away.

if you have time do it your self. it can take a few days to do even on a small house. pro's tend to shortcut it because of that. eg it took me a day just to clean up all the rubbish under the house. i've seen pro's just put it over the top of the rubbish before.

most of what needs to be done has been said, things to add is sort the drainage first, ground should be dry first. also at the end you need drainage holes in the low points. pegging it to the ground will also make drain holes.

overlap the joins. don't worry to much if you can't tape around poles or cover all the ground. if you cover 90% you get 90% reduction in moisture. even if you do it badly it still going to help.

tweake

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#2947859 29-Jul-2022 13:58

gzt: Interesting article here - includes a composite cork/pvc/vinyl tile product:

https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/129354862/passive-housestyle-benefits-for-30-less-than-the-cost-of-a-new-certified-build

some of that build is appalling. those walls are being done back to front. i even asked an professional/expert in the field about it and he basically called it crap and wondered why anyone would do that.

those insulated wall panels are used overseas but on brick walls, not wooden walls. brick doesn't go rotten, wood does.

i highly recommend people steer clear of it or at least do the moisture modelling, which i highly doubt the suppliers provide because its really expensive to do.

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