Here is my problem: I have an old house - nearly 100 years old - that I need to insulate but I have a few problems and concerns I need to deal with. The walls are essentially stone and an old kind on solid cement block.

I’ve been looking into the insulation solutions available in my market and it is basically a matter of gluing thick boards of styrofoam-like material to the walls.

On the outwalls this is not feaseable as the house faces a road with no sidewalk, so I’d be encroaching onto the road. Inside, adding 5cm of insulation would make small rooms smaller to the point some would be, for all practical purposes, rendered into generous pantries.

Because I live in a somewhat rural area, mice and rodents are a concern, so adding materials they can chew through makes no sense. It would be like supplying an easy to move through medium to run the entire house. I have seen houses and buildings with this kind of insulation chewed into, the moment the smallest of pieces of the hard plaster gets cracked, which is very easy. The added fire hazard is a concern as well, I’ll admit.

I’ve already seen cork insulation but the base color is always brown and does not deal well with being painted on.

What other options may I look into? I’m in southern Europe but in an area with harsh winters.

  • @pdavis
    2•5 months ago

    I don’t really know of a way that you can add insulation without taking up interior space, exterior space, or replacing the wall with more modern materials.

    • What about the sides of the home not facing the street? Can you add an exterior layer of insulation and then new exterior siding to those walls?
    • On the side facing the street, you could replace the stone wall with a different type of wall that was more thermally resistant. This would of course be a major undertaking.
    • I am sure you have considered fully insulating the floor and ceiling as best you can.
    • If rodents and or insects are a concern, look into Mineral Wool/Rockwool Insulation.
    • qyronOP
      2•5 months ago

      Taking some available space away is a given.

      Many places have a long experience in dealing with cold, which my country lacks, hence I’m asking here for advice. The default solution was either endure it or burn more wood.

      I may be able to shave off one or two centimeters of the total volume required as the walls are currently covered with a very thick layer of cement that was set with no concern to prior levelling the stone (in places where the mortars started to fail I chipped away to clear the loose material and there are spots where 2 to 3cm of cement could be saved just by grinding away an edge of a stone) but going by the solutions my market has available, I risk needing to layer up to 10cm of material on my walls.

      I do intend to insulate floor and ceillings as they will be, for all practical purposes, rebuilt, as the current wood floors are thin.

      The house is squeezed between a pedestrian street, where I can’t encroach, as there is little room already, and another house. I do have one wall I intend to insulate from the outside as it faces an empty plot.

      Mineral wool I have been looking into it but I was warned it wicks moisture. Is this true?