If staying at home through the lockdowns of the pandemic got you feeling restless at home, you likely embarked on some kind of home improvement, decoration, DIY adventure. Channelling your inner home designer, you took to the walls with paper, laid a decking in the garden, got round to those niggly little jobs that have been bother you for years. However, if you decided to take your home renovation projects to the next level and change the layout of your home, you’re likely facing some big decisions about how best to bring your dream into the world of reality.
For example, if you decided to split a room to make another space for the arguing teenagers, or if you need to create a working area for your new home office, you likely need to build a partition wall. If a building has the available space, a partition wall or stud wall is a great way of getting the most out of it. They are easy to put up and change around if needed. They allow you to reconfigure the plan of your home to the needs you currently have, without committing to something permanent. However, in order to build the most efficient, effective, and protected partition wall, it’s essential that the wall is insulated.
What Partition Wall Insulation Can Do
Insulating your partition walls is a quick, cheap yet effective way to improve the thermal performance and reduce the sound transfer within your home. If you leave your partitional walls uninsulated, it can have a negative impact on your own wellbeing and comfort. Partition wall insulation works by filling in the spaces within the wall to improve the acoustic insulation and fire resistance. If you are designed a quiet, working space, it’s essential to have a study wall insulated as this will work to reduce the sound transfer between rooms. Also, as many partition walls are wooden and thus at a greater risk of becoming a hazard during a fire, insulating the walls improves its resilience towards this.
The Options Available
There are many options available when it comes to choosing a market material to insulate a partition wall. While these materials differ slightly in various ways, they all share the common goal of improve energy efficiency in a home, reducing the transfer of sound, and protecting a room from fire. If you need to choose from one of the available materials, the choice can feel overwhelming, and it’s hard to know which option to go for. While it is vital to get the opinion of a specialist before you install partition wall insulation, you need to know the basics of the materials available so that you can make an informed decision.
Let’s briefly discuss two forms of partition wall insulation.
Mineral Wool Insulation
This material works great if your goal is to improve the sound insulation and reduce the heat transmission of a partition wall. Being one of the cost-effective materials on the market, mineral wool insulation absorbs sound energy and is unrivalled in its fire-resistant quality. One of the UKs top manufactures, Rockwool, are leading the way in creating sustainable, non-combustible stone wool insulation and their rockwool rwa45 acoustic insulation slab is one of their top performing products.
Phenolic Insulation
In the current economic crisis, where energy bills are on the up, your main goal of insulation may be to retain heat. If that’s the case, you’ll likely be steered in the direction of solid phenolic insulation boards, such as the Kingspan Kooltherm K112 Board. This is a fibre-free insulation solution that fits between the studwork in a wall with an unsurpassed thermal efficiency.
