Insulation and health - what should one choose?

Hello everyone,

I would like to ask for your valued advice.

We are currently renovating the first floor of my parents' house. Now it's about insulating the slopes and the ceiling.

The carpenter offered us Knauf insulation wool. However, this insulation is not entirely harmless from a health perspective. How is it then with the vapor barrier, counter battens, and drywall panels, can fine particles still circulate in the living space? What about the bedroom and children's room? Is there still a certain health risk?

What natural insulation materials could be used? And what do you put in the partition walls as insulation, which are made with drywall?

I am really quite uncertain... hope you have a few tips and advice for me.

Thanks a lot in advance.

In the installed state, insulation felt is absolutely harmless. Alternatively, there is also insulation material made from wood fibers, hemp, etc. They cost more, insulate less well and have other problems. But if you feel more comfortable with that, of course, that works too, your carpenter will surely supply you with that stuff as well.

One should not forget that often it is the dust itself that poses the health hazard and not the material.

I would worry less about that, anyway seal the vapor barrier/vapor retarder tightly. I don't see how anything from the insulation could get into the living space.
Off-gassing of the vapor barrier would probably be more harmful, even though I think that's nonsense.

Hello you two,

thank you very much for your answers.

So nothing goes through when everything is plastered and so on? A friend made me uncertain because he said that the materials still move and with the slightest crack particles end up in the living space... So I don't have to worry especially about the bedroom and children's room?

Yes, I have read about insulation with wood fibers and so on. I will then talk to the carpenter about the insulation of the drywall walls.

Would you then use this insulation fleece made of glass wool in the children's room?

Mineral wool. Yes, sure, I would take that (we also have it in the upper floor ceiling).

Me too, where necessary also between the walls. I wouldn't know how fibers could come out of the wall there, everything is tightly plastered. It would have to be a real hurricane sweeping through the apartment for anything to happen there. Ultimately, one could look at what is used in ecological construction. I mean, they use wood fiber or also paper ([Einblasdämmung] or some kind of folded cardboard). Whether those things are the right ones, I can't answer.