Insulating your Bedroom from Head to Toe

by Mark Row

Give yourself a Good Night Sleep

If you are considering commencing a remodelling project within your home, and you are willing to make some serious investment, we would suggest you start from insulating your bedroom from head to toe. Just try to think rational and be economical – if you already planning on, let’s say, rebuilding your walls or replacing the floor in your bedroom why not use the opportunity and check whether your home has proper insulation installed and whether the existing one needs to be replaced or upgraded. Since installing installation can cost a lot of money and usually takes a lot of time, we advise you take it one step at the time and start with insulating your bedroom.

Conduct s Thorough Inspection

The first step in your remodelling project should involve detailed inspection of your bedroom, especially walls, floors and windows. If you decide to start with your windows, check whether they need to be replaced, since this is always a good investment, due to the fact that draughty windows are a great source of energy loss. If you have your windows recently replaced, check whether they need to be additionally insulated, by weather stripping or caulking.

The next step in bedroom inspection should involve checking your floors. This would involve lifting up the floorboards to determine whether there is insulation already installed. You can start by lifting one or two floorboards, by using a crowbar. However, if you see that timber boards have started to rot or decay due to the exposure to underground moisture and salt in the soil, especially if you are dealing with a suspended timber floor which is usually laid directly onto the ground, you should consider replacing the entire floor, that is lifting the boards a few cm above the ground and adding some insulation between the floor joists, but we will get to that later.

Finally, check the walls. Drilling a hole in the wall in some unobtrusive area may be a start. However, if there is no insulation already installed or you have spotted moisture problems shown in damp or even crumbly brickwork, you are in desperate need of proper bedroom wall insulation, which will also take care of those moisture problems, but will most likely include tearing down the entire wall.

Let’s Start with the Floors

If you have already decided that your timber floorboards need replacement, know that this could ease the bedroom floor insulation process, since once you remove all the floorboards, you will have an open and free access to the entire surface that needs to be covered with insulation.

Once you have removed the boards and disposed of all existing insulation (if any), it would be a good idea to previously place some plastic sheet or netting under the joists which will keep the installed insulation in place, not allowing it to slip down over time. Now, if you want to do the job right, you could also opt for some more expensive or efficient breather membrane which will allow the whole construction to breathe and protect it from inevitable damp and moisture problems.

The final step involves placing the insulation above, carefully laid between the floor joists, best done with some rock or glass wool. The good thing is that you can order a pre-cut rolls which you will only have to stretch along the joist and snug tightly in between. Maybe, you will need to make some smaller adjustments, but this can easily be done with a utility knife, since mineral wool is generally very easy to shape. Finally, take care of prescribed minimum U values for floor insulation, since this may involve placing a more than one layer of insulation in order of meeting the set values. If you want our piece of advice, we suggest you go for Knauf or URSA Insulation rolls which also have some soundproofing characteristics or a more environmentally friendly solution found in Thermafleece Eco rolls, all available on Insulation London. Once you are done with placing the insulation, you can just add the timber floorboards of your choice above.

            

Moving on to Insulating Bedroom Walls

Once you are done with the floors, it is time to move on to insulating your bedroom walls. As mentioned before, if you are dealing with excessive moisture problems, note that this problem needs to be properly addressed, since it could also affect the efficiency of your insulation, in time. Firstly, it is important to choose only water resistant insulation materials which will be able to properly protect the construction. Another important thing is installing a proper vapour barrier. If you need more information on installing vapour barriers, please refer to our article on.

The next step is installing proper internal wall insulation. We recommend you go for some mineral wool insulation rolls and slabs (such as ones available from Knauf, Rockwool and Thermafleece) simply due to their resistance to vapour and moisture and the easy installation process. The installation process involves constructing a timber stud wall which will be used to hold the insulation in place, meaning that the material will be laid between the stud wall joists and covered with some plaster finish.   

Choose between different insulation materials best suited for your bedroom, or seek advice from our experts. You are welcome to leave a comment or share the article.