Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition |
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These two books are the perfect starting place to help you get to grips with one of the most vitally important aspects of our society - our homes and living environment. PLEASE NOTE: A download link for Volume 1 will be sent to you by email and Volume 2 will be sent to you by post as a book. |
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Posted By: jfbPavadentro used to have a mineral layer that was supposed to minimize interstital condensation risks though I never quite understood how it worked. Not sure if the other ones from Pavatex do the same.
I went for steico therm (not tongue and grooved) for cost reasons - much cheaper when I looked. I went for 60mm thick not any more to reduce chances of interstital condensation (with 500mm rubble walls). It seems to have worked very well.
Is the original lime render still in tact or covered by wallpaper/paint/gypsum? You will need to get back to a flat layer of breathable render (the airtight layer as well) to provide an suitable base for the IWI boards. Anything subfloor I would use EPS.
What are your plans at ceiling level? Best to run the boards continuously up the wall around the joists.
I ended up mixing my own hydraulic lime/sand render for finishing over the woodfibre rather than use recommended bagged (expensive) version and it has worked well. But that may depend on who's doing it and how they want to do it.
Wiring - may need some rethinking as sockets will move away from the wall as they are. You can always chase cable into the woodfibre if needed.
Sorry I don't know much more about the competing products but if you need more info on installation ask away.
Posted By: jfbI really should learn how to use the quote function - anyone enlighten me?!Select the text you want to quote, press the quote button in the top right of the post you're quoting from then, when you come to press “Add your comments”, make sure that “Format comment as” is selected to Html. If it's selected to Text the blockquote tags, etc, will be displayed literally.
Posted By: jfbDefinitely use a mesh (4mm grid if I remember right). For my house I did it in two goes - one layer, put mesh on and a little scratch, then finish coat. This has worked very well.
Posted By: jfb"I'll probably be utilising IWI soon and will probably opt for Steico Therm, I'm interested to hear about your lime/sand render finish. Was it one coat, did you use any fibre mesh? How much cheaper than something like Lime Green Solo? " - Kristeva
I really should learn how to use the quote function - anyone enlighten me?!
Definitely use a mesh (4mm grid if I remember right). For my house I did it in two goes - one layer, put mesh on and a little scratch, then finish coat. This has worked very well.
For an outhouse I did it in one go. It has ended up a little weaker than the house but I think that is more down to not using an identical sand. (I used a medium and fine washed sand for the house and a fine washed sand for the outhouse).
I remember looking at the Lime Green Solo (never used it though) as that was what was recommended. i can't remember how much cheaper it worked out but it was quite a bit. Roughly if a bag of lime 3.5 is £10 and you use 1/3 bag to 2/3 sand to equate to a bag of lime solo (£20?) you can see the difference. Downside is bagged is more uniform but so long as you are gauging your mixes all should be good.
Posted By: djhPosted By: jfbDefinitely use a mesh (4mm grid if I remember right). For my house I did it in two goes - one layer, put mesh on and a little scratch, then finish coat. This has worked very well.
Note that historically mesh wasn't available. People used up to 30% of horsehair in the mix instead. The current equivalent (some people still use horsehair) is polypropylene fibres in the mix. Mesh is fine, so is fibre, or a combination. Anything to increase the tensile strength of the plaster, just like concrete.
Posted By: kristevaYou can get horse hair quite easily and I would imagine its a little easier to use that mesh.
He turned his nose up at my wood fibre idea and said that external walls only need to breathe from one side and should be closed the other. In fact he said its damaging for a wall to be vapour open on both sides!
Posted By: Ed Davieselect the text you want to quote, press the quote button in the top right of the post you're quoting
Posted By: kristevaThanks, that's really interesting. You can get horse hair quite easily and I would imagine its a little easier to use that mesh.
Posted By: jfb"
Definitely use a mesh (4mm grid if I remember right). For my house I did it in two goes - one layer, put mesh on and a little scratch, then finish coat. This has worked very well.
Posted By: jfbPosted By: kristevaThanks, that's really interesting. You can get horse hair quite easily and I would imagine its a little easier to use that mesh.
I forgot to say that I used fibres in all render coats apart from the finish coat (sometimes the the fibres can end up visible) as well as mesh.
Posted By: Pile-o-StonePosted By: jfb"
Definitely use a mesh (4mm grid if I remember right). For my house I did it in two goes - one layer, put mesh on and a little scratch, then finish coat. This has worked very well.
This is how I did my lime plastering. I only did the first layer and mesh though and had a specialist lime plasterer come in and do the top coat - I didn't have much faith in my plastering skills to put the top layer on public display :)
Saying that, the plasterer complemented my base coats and said I should have a go at doing the top ones too. Maybe when I do the next room on the list.
For my ceilings I just did one coat with mesh. Once it went off a little, I went over it with a damp sponge and roughed it up, giving it a uniform 'sandpaper' type finish and taking out any trowel marks. The coarseness looks good against our exposed beams and joists and it toned down with a couple of layers of clay paint.
It cost quite a bit to get the plasterer to put on the fine top coat of lime, so I dread to think how much it would have been to get him to do the whole job. It's funny how we learn these new skills when there is no alternative. The only time the air turned blue was when I first did a ceiling and had loads of plaster falling onto me and just could not get the mesh into the ceiling - it also kept falling onto me and covered me with lime. The problem was caused by trying to cover the ceiling with one long piece of mesh, rather than cutting it into smaller pieces and troweling them in an overlapping pattern.
The lime plaster I bought had synthetic hairs in it, which turned out to be a good idea as I over ordered and so some of the bags have been there 5 years as I have done a room at a time and used them up. If I had horse hair in there I think the lime would have dissolved it by now!
p.s. for the person who is thinking of not using a mesh. I wouldn't if I were you, especially on ceilings with heavy footfall. A mate of mine did that and he's forever filling in cracks in his walls and ceilings. I've not had a single crack in over 5 years in the room I did first.
Posted By: djhand completely wrong, if relying on the 'breathing' principle.said that external walls only need to breathe from one side and should be closed the other. In fact he said its damaging for a wall to be vapour open on both sides!
That's a very old-fashioned view
Posted By: fostertomYou can rely instead on the internal vapour barrier principle, which is still the conventional wisdom thanks to the long rule of the faulty Glaser method' but if you do, that vapour barrier has to be superhumanly complete and fault-free forever, otherwise it might as well not be there. Think of a bucket of water with 'only' one small pinhole - it won't be long before all the water has passed through it to 'the other side'.Why does the internal vapour barrier have to be perfect if vapour can escape to the outside?
Posted By: Ed Daviesvapour can escape to the outside(so why bother with the vapour barrier? which only serves to halve (?) the wall's re-drying potential).
Posted By: fostertomso why bother with the vapour barrier?Because it's primarily an air-tightness layer which happens to also stop water vapour.
Posted By: jfb
I went for steico therm (not tongue and grooved) for cost reasons - much cheaper when I looked. I went for 60mm thick not any more to reduce chances of interstital condensation (with 500mm rubble walls). It seems to have worked very well.
What are your plans at ceiling level? Best to run the boards continuously up the wall around the joists.
Posted By: daveking66The pitched section is lathe and plaster with nothing but a layer of roofing felt between the roof tiles. Any recommendations how I tackle this? Do I just use steico therm again with lime
Posted By: Ed DaviesExactly, so why not call it that and design it to be airtight but vapout open?so why bother with the vapour barrier?Because it's primarily an air-tightness layer which happens to also stop water vapour.
Posted By: fostertomPosted By: Ed Daviesso why bother with the vapour barrier?Because it's primarily an air-tightness layer which happens to also stop water vapour.
And still even on GBF, people muddy the waters by talking about vapour barriers when they mean air barriers!
Posted By: daveking66Are they not one and the same?? As air will almost always be carrying moisture (especially air travelling from within the building), any barrier blocking air will also be blocking moisture?
Have I got this right?
Posted By: djhedit: actually one example that does have some importance is plastic piping (is it PE or PB?) which lets oxygen through whilst containing water and therefore needs an aluminium layer incorporating to stop that. Otherwise corrosion in central heating systems.How do you know that plastic piping without an aluminium layer wouldn't let out water vapour just as much as it lets in oxygen? Are the quantities of oxygen let in enough that the amounts of water vapour going the other way would be noticeable, bearing in mind the much higher partial pressures of oxygen in the atmosphere than equilibrium vapour pressures of water, even central-heating temperature water?
Posted By: LFMoisture often higher inside than out so it will try permeateOr, often, the reverse, diurnally and seasonally. At any rate, its vapour pressure is particularly likely to be different +/- from that of the other components of 'air' as a whole, just as its %age 0-4% is uniquely variable.