DHI Planning and Living St. Wendel

Hello Jochen,

I would be happy if you could report on your work regarding the floor insulation, as this is still ahead of us as well. Maybe you can take one or two pictures of the installation work and send them to me?! That would be great...

Regards, Martin

Hello Martin, yes, I will do that. I hope I remember to take some pictures. Tonight we will get our briefing. Tomorrow it starts. Unfortunately, I can't yet estimate the time required. Timo, can you say how long you needed for that?

Hello Jochen,

we will start with the burn-off barrier tomorrow. The instruction regarding the installation of the insulation is scheduled for in 2-3 weeks.
Have fun then

Happy holiday, possibly a nice long weekend.

Regards

So, 11 hours at the construction site yesterday... this morning I feel every muscle in my body... I’m simply not used to it anymore... but tonight we’ll continue.

We started on the upper floor because there was still some moisture on the floor in the ground floor from the plaster (however, everything dried yesterday).

Procedure on the upper floor:

[*]Sweeping out (and vacuuming if necessary)
[*]A layer of EPS panels (30mm thick, 1mx1m) on the concrete. This is the most work because all the pipes have to be cut out.
[*]Then the edge insulation strip goes around the perimeter, which is attached to the walls with a hammer stapler.
[*]After that comes the “system panel” on top. That is a foil under which another 30mm insulation is attached. This insulation comes in rolls of 12x1m and is easier to install because only the domestic water pipes (rectangular insulation) need to be cut out.
[*]The foil is then glued together at the seams.
[*]Afterwards, the foil is glued from the edge insulation strip onto the “system panel.”

Here are pictures of a finished room (you can see the two layers and the edge insulation strip) and a room with pipes and the lower layer of EPS:


On the ground floor, the same procedure applies, except that first a 53mm PUR panel (1.20x0.60m) is placed underneath. This must be cut around the pipes, and the other panels are laid on top.

The cutting around the water pipes or empty conduits for cables is the work-intensive part everywhere.
All materials were supplied, including adhesive tape, rollers, hammer stapler with needles.

What you still need:

[*]Utility knife with sharp blades (per person)
[*]Measuring tape (per person)
[*]Edding marker for marking (per person; easier to see than pencil)
[*]Broom

What I can also recommend:

[*]Industrial vacuum cleaner (or whatever you call the devices that can also suck up small stones or similar)
[*]Straightedge so you can cut straight (yesterday we used a short one (approx. 80cm), a 1.50m and a 2m one)
[*]Two sawhorses (what is the High German word for that) and a wooden board as a work surface (this is quite convenient so you don’t have to do everything on the floor)
[*]Radio

What I still don’t know but will ask about at noon is the following:

[*]How must the insulation be installed and the edge strip laid where the toilet flush/pre-wall installation will go? We already have pipes partially in place there.
[*]Does the edge strip also have to be installed along the staircase formwork? We have a steel stringer staircase and the enclosure of the air space is already set.
[*]Does the foil of the system panel have to be continuous over the pipes, or is it sufficient to glue it tightly?

I hope I’ve thought of everything. Otherwise, I’ll write again.

Hey Jochen,

with such a very detailed post, one might think that you really enjoyed the work No, but seriously, really cool and many thanks for the preliminary info. We will be able to use a lot of it.

You can possibly still provide the missing information.. once the muscle soreness has gone away

Regards and have a good start to the week

Martin

Good morning,

we have now finished laying the insulation. Yes, it was quite fun since you could finally do something yourself on your house again. But we were all also happy when we were done.

The time effort was actually quite high. My father and I (both good craftsmen in my opinion) and my wife (fortunately also somewhat talented) as well as two additional helpers on Saturday were in total about 110 hours at work. Short breaks for eating not included. However, from my point of view, we also worked very thoroughly during this time and left a wonderfully clean construction site.

On the ground floor, the work was actually easier because the PUR boards are the same height as the pipe insulation. However, in our house, especially in the utility room, there were significantly more pipes. For cutting the PUR boards, I would also recommend a jigsaw. This makes it much easier than with a cutter knife. We filled smaller gaps or empty spaces above the round insulated pipes with loose fill. One sack was completely sufficient for us.

The PUR boards were measured quite tightly, but it worked out exactly. EPS boards and system boards are each still about 2 m² available, so well calculated. Edge insulation strips were a bit too few and unfortunately were also stapled backwards over a few meters (adhesive foil facing upwards) and the foil was damaged, so we had to get more supply from the company L. from N. But this was offered to us in advance and worked perfectly.

Regarding the open points:

How must the insulation be done or the edge strip installed where the toilet flush / pre-wall installation is to be? Because some pipes are already there in parts.

We laid and glued the edge insulation strip past the pipes. That worked well.

Does the edge strip also have to go along the stair formwork? We have a steel stringer staircase and the enclosure of the air space is already set.

Yes, it must also go past there. The edge insulation strip actually has to be laid all around to ensure that the screed later has no direct contact to the outside.

Does the foil of the system board have to be continuous over pipes, or is it sufficient to glue it tightly?

It is also sufficient if the pipes are glued tightly. Alternatively, the foil from leftover pieces of the system boards can be peeled off and then glued over them.

So, I hope those were all the important information.