Insulation on order - Bev found someone who sells fire retardant polystyrene - Woods Insulation at Wombourne - no website but ring 01902 894752 or 892517 - very helpful - will provide receipt stating grade of material etc.

should be done in June 2002 - please come back!

OK - so I'm a little late - it's now early July but the insulation is nearly done.

First Stage

Well first off we decided to insulate the roof with 1" polystyrene. With TCW's design we have 1" square section reinforcing steel in the roof so the polystyrene was cut to fit snugly between these braces. See the picture below.

Bev whizzed through this bit with the help of Pat who came to see the boat and ended up helping! It took a whole afternoon!

Next we had to fix battens to the steel reinforcers in order to have something to fasten the roof lining to. These were 1" x 1 1/2" (25mm x 38mm for the metric bods) pre-treated timber from B&Q. The battens and steel were drilled through with a 3.5mm drill and a 4 x 40mm screw (Screwfix) was used to self tap into the steel. The battens were joined crudely with an overlapping piece of wood. Sufficient battens were used to provide a good base for the 6mm ash veneered ply we are using for the roof. Time for another pic.

With the roof finished it was time to turn our attention to the cabin sides above the gunwhales. Again this was to be lined with 1" polystyrene but first we needed to create a framework to suppport the ply cladding that would go over the insulation. The polystyrene was then fitted snugly between the battens (the same as used on the roof but used edge on so they protruded 1 1/2" into the cabin (This gave room for creating window frames etc later on).

In the left hand picture we can see both cabin sides now lined with polystyrene and the framework for the bow bulkhead is visible. By now, Bev, apart from nearly chopping the end of her finger off with a craft knife is a fair wiz at cutting polystyrene to size! The right hand picture shows the stern bulkhead also line with 1" polystyrene in a similar manner. Below the gunwhale a double layer of polystyrene is used (ie 2") for added insulation - less battening is used due to 13mm ply being applied over the top.

This more or less completes the insulation - a time consuming but essential task. - Just for fun, when we get bored with insulating - we feed the fish - there's some whoppers in the marina - sorry but its no fishing!

Last update for insulation!

One last tip on insulation, no matter how good you are at cutting polystyrene there are always a few little gaps that need filling - you can either cut little slithers of polystyrene or use expanding foam. Now bearing in mind that the rest of the polystyrene is fire retardant, I did not really want to use some normal expanding foam so I was pleased to find fire retardant foam in the good old Screwfix catalogue (they really should give me a commission for this!) - here is a picture of the can being modelled by Bev in latex gloves (Its not kinky! - they're a very good idea with this stuff) and another of the end result awaiting trimming.

Home