| The Ecohome : First floor bedroom | |
| | | The Ecohome : First floor bedroom
The largest room in the house, this was always a bedroom. Very similar to the Creative Room directly below, the room had an ugly 1940s fireplace and badly reconstructed window reveals. The floor was carpeted throughout and there was a small access hatch in the ceiling above the bay.
The fireplace was removed, followed by the ancient carpet which was thrown triumphally out through the window for more direct access to the skip. The levels of dust which filled the room were unpleasant but almost insignificant compared to what was to fall from the ceiling over the following lung-hammering months. When the ceiling was stripped off badly cracked plaster was revealed, which slowly and continuously shed a seemingly never-ending supply of dust until it was boarded up. The former hatch allowed access to a roof void which existed behind the attic room - prior to the room being extended into it. As well as revealing the structure of the roof, looking through the hatch revealed something altogether more alarming.
Due to the terrible installation of the current PVCu windows The ceiling joists - also the floor joists to the floor above - were floating with no support above the bay windows. The original wooden sash windows were set further back, providing direct support to the bay floor structure. The current windows were set forward, which meant that the joists were simply left hanging. To remedy this a timber beam was added spanning the bay, to which the joists in questions were strapped. The void directly above the bay area was then filled with 400mm of fibreglass insulation recovered from the roof void above.
A contractor was brought in to strip back the floorboards and to apply the same OS colour hard floor wax in semi transparent white 'Spruce'. The reason for general avoidance of fitted wall-to-wall carpets is to reduce the House Dust Mite which is a major cause of allergies and asthma and to reduce the build up of ingrained dust and dirt.
Knauf dry-lining board was then applied in the same way as used in the Creative Room with two layers of 52.5mm boards fixed to the walls. The return at the right hand corner was used to reduce the 'cold bridge' through the party wall. The return on the left is to mirror the overlap with external insulation on the front elevation that will be applied in the near future. This room receives the greatest amount of sun and therefore the most passive solar heating. The dry-lining helps the room to make the most of the heat. Because this wall is yet to be plastered it is possible to see how the boards were applied and cut to angle, revealing the construction of the board.
The ceiling has been covered in Gyproc GRG glass fibre reinforced plasterboard. The reason for using glass reinforcement is the board can be thinner and in this case, 6mm. This was chosen so as not to interfere with the cornice detail around the edges. Continue the tour >> | | | |
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