Hello Maurice Beinat, Technical Director at ecoMaster with you once again; and today
we're going to talk wall insulation on new products. So maybe you're building
yourself an extension to your home or maybe you're an owner builder building a
new place. So what we're going to look at today is fitting wall insulation to
internal walls. Now why would you want to do that? So we're standing today in a
garage, and here are the internal walls of the garage, between the garage and the
home itself. So this is, in effect, an external wall, because the garage not
being a conditioned space, and in there being a conditioned space. We need
to insulate these walls. So in order to do that, it's really only three steps. The
first one is to fit packing strap across this wall, so that we can fit the
insulation up to the packing strap without the insulation falling through
to the other side. Now to do that we're going to make use of one of these, so
this is a hammer tacker. Put staples in the end, and you can just whack it
against the stud and that puts the staple in the stub. So that's pretty
handy for putting the packing strap across here. So then we're going to put
the insulation in, and packing strap. The third and final step is packing strap on
the other side, so that the insulation is held firmly between the studs. And bear
in mind that on building sites sometimes it does get really windy, and so more
packing strap is better than less. Okay? Also, best to do this just before the
plasterboard is going to be put on, so they're minimizing the risk of the
insulation coming out; or someone actually dislodging the insulation. So we
need to make sure that the electrical rough-in is in, and also the plumbing
rough-in, and we're going to fit around all that. Now bear in mind that it's good
to cut the insulation around the electrical outlets, so that makes it
easier for the sparky to fit this outlet without pushing the insulation out the
other side. The other thing that's really really important is to make sure that no
insulation is sticking out in front of the studs.
Okay? So it must not fit out in front of the studs. Why is
that? Because it doesn't take much insulation poking out in order to put a
lot of pressure on the plasterboard when the plasters and putting the
plaster board on. Okay? So what can happen is that they can put the plasterboard
on, and then before the stud adhesive sets, the insulation pushes the plaster
board out, and you can end up with bowed out plasterboard and that's a really
expensive mistake because all that's got to come off and be done again. So just
make sure that your insulation stays within the studs and doesn't poke out
either side. So let's have a go at doing that now. Well as you can see now we've
completed our wall. The wall between the garage and the inside of the home is
fully insulated. We've got the packing strap on both sides of the wall so that
batts are held carefully between them, even if there's a good wind come
through here, these are still going to be in place. Most importantly there's no
waving of the batts they're not sticking out in front of the stud work so they're
not going to cause the plasters a problem. Where the stud work is
appropriate, we've fitted full batts straight up. And in areas where the studs
are a little bit closer then we've turned the batts and torn them and fitted
carefully so that there are no gaps.
And we've made cutouts for the power outlets and now light switches so that
the electricians can fit off easily when it's their turn. Also something that you
may not have considered is in filling the internal corners. Also quite
important to make a complete job of it. So there you have it,
insulating a new-build garage wall.