All other things being equal, any improvement in your home’s thermal insulation will translate into higher surface temperatures and consequently reduce the risk of condensation.
Sloped Roofs Installing (or adding) loft floor insulation is without a doubt one of the most effective ways to save money on heating bills. This will prevent condensation on the underside of upper story ceilings, but can drastically increase the chance of condensation in the loft space, especially if the loft hatch and holes into the house are not properly sealed and left unopened. spaces in the eaves.
Insulating materials such as mineral wool can be placed between the beams, preferably about 100 mm thick. Insulation should be placed evenly between joists with no gaps and run down to the eave to cover the head of the wall, making sure ventilation openings are not blocked.
Since improving roof insulation will make the roof space cooler, the movement of moist air from the house into the roof space should be minimal. Gaps in the ceiling (around pipes, cables, etc.) should be sealed as much as possible. The roof hatch (loft) must also be sealed and equipped with a latch to prevent movement. As long as you haven’t had any previous serious problems with condensation in your ceiling space, the above precautions should suffice. However, if condensation does occur, you will need to improve ventilation in the ceiling space by providing ventilation openings in the caves if they are not already there. Or add shingles and ridge fans and air bricks on gable walls.
If you insulate your loft, you must also insulate the cold water cistern and all pipes.
Flat roofs (bituminous felt or metal roofs)
Although it is possible to improve the insulation, the way in which it should be done depends on the type of roof. Repair or renovation of existing roofs must be of the insulated-on-deck type.
exterior walls
You can increase the insulating properties of a wall by applying additional insulating material to the interior or exterior surface of the wall or within the wall itself. As a DIY task, the placement of internal linings is the most practicable. Insulation of hollow walls should be left to specialized contractors (except when building a new home) and insulation of the exterior of walls involves a considerable number of modifications.
A lightweight cladding built into the interior of a masonry wall produces a surface that heats up and cools down considerably faster than the wall itself, so the temperature of the surface directly in contact with the air is better able to keep up. with the air temperature in the house. This will greatly reduce the risk of condensation if your home is heated intermittently: unoccupied during the day with little or no curing followed by large inflows of moisture and heat in the afternoon.
A plasterboard lining is usually sufficient to prevent condensation on the surface of a hollow wall, but insulating plasterboard is preferable for a solid wall.
When building over a lightweight wallcovering, you must provide a vapor barrier to restrict the flow of water vapor through the wall so that condensation within the wall is kept to a minimum. This can be accomplished either by using a special vapor control board or by stapling a separate sheet of polyethylene to the wooden battens that hold the board to the wall.
You can also improve the condensation resistance of a hollow wall by gluing insulation material directly to the interior surface of the wall. Insulating material can be thin Styrofoam rolls that will warm the surface of the wall but add very little to your insulation. One downside to thin Styrofoam is that it is easy to chew on; The more substantial wall insulation material will not only not dent but add significantly to the wall insulation while stopping condensation.
cold bridges
They occur when the thermal insulation of small areas of a wall is considerably less than that of the surrounding wall. Typical cold bridges are window lintels and massive columns that are part of a wall. Condensation problems in cold bridges can rarely, if ever, be satisfactorily prevented by adjusting heat input, ventilation, or moisture production. Restorative treatment is generally necessary.
The easiest way to overcome a cold patch on a wall is to glue insulation over it. Choose a type of insulation that is not permeable to water vapor. It may be possible to hide the insulation in the plaster finish. However, in many cases, techniques similar to those described above will have to be used to improve wall insulation in order to obtain a nice and satisfactory wall finish.
Windows Condensation on the glass of single-glazed windows can be overcome by installing double glazing. However, in many cases condensation will still occur on metal window frames. At present, double glazing is barely cost-effective when it comes to fuel savings, but when window frames need to be replaced, double-glazed windows should be considered.
While double glazing will almost certainly reduce the level of condensation on the glazing, it is possible to increase condensation elsewhere. The reason for this is simple: modern double-glazed systems, especially high-performance replacement windows, are an extremely effective method of draft protection and, when used to replace a leaking single-glazed window, can simply move the condensation problem to another location, usually a cold exterior wall.
