Internal Wall Insulation Questions Checklist

Walk the house and mark the rooms where an outside wall is a surface you sit, work or sleep against, rather than one you simply walk past.

How long people sit beside a cold surface matters more to how a home feels than the area of wall does, and only an occupant can describe that.

Pace out the narrowest rooms with an exposed wall and note which of them could not give up any depth at all without becoming unworkable.

A room that already feels tight will feel tighter, and it is far better to rule it out on paper than to discover it halfway through.

List the rooms whose decoration you would not mind losing, and keep them separate from rooms finished recently that would have to be redone.

The real burden of lining a room is usually the decoration and joinery around it, so the state of the finishes changes the answer.

Note any room where the outside wall is largely window and door already, and consider whether treating the strips left over would achieve much.

Some rooms have very little solid wall once the openings are taken out, which changes whether the exercise is worth the upheaval.

Write down whether you would accept some rooms being lined and others left as they are, or whether a partial approach would bother you.

Treating some rooms and not others changes how the building behaves overall; ask a qualified professional what that would mean here.

Photograph the skirting, architraves, picture rail, dado and any cornice on each wall you are considering, close up and in daylight.

Mouldings can sometimes be taken off and put back and sometimes not, but nobody can discuss it without seeing what is actually there.

Note where a cornice or ceiling moulding runs along an exposed wall, and ask what would happen to it where a new lining meets the ceiling.

What can be done with original plasterwork is a question for a qualified professional experienced in that kind of repair.

Record whether a chimney breast sits in the wall concerned, and describe the alcoves on either side and anything built into them.

Breasts and alcoves create returns and changes of depth that make a wall far less simple than it appears in a single photograph.

List the fitted joinery standing against the wall, such as a wardrobe, a bookcase, a window seat, a run of units or the string of a staircase.

Fitted items usually have to come off, and whether each one is worth saving is a decision for you rather than for whoever removes it.

Write down which pieces of joinery you want salvaged and reused, accepting in advance that some may not survive being taken off.

Removing and reinstating original joinery is skilled work; agree with a qualified professional who does it and what happens if a piece breaks.

Photograph one window reveal on every wall you are considering, showing the frame, the board beneath it and where the plaster meets the frame.

A photograph of a reveal answers questions that a written description from an owner almost never manages to.

Note how much of the window frame is visible from inside the room, and consider whether seeing less of it would trouble you afterwards.

Frames can end up looking narrower from inside, which some owners barely notice and others find changes the room considerably.

Record how deep the board or sill under each window is and whether it currently holds plants, books, a radio or anything else you keep there.

A shallower board afterwards is a small daily annoyance that is entirely foreseeable and almost never mentioned in advance.

Ask what happens at the reveal itself and how a lining is taken around an opening, rather than asking only about the main face of the wall.

Detailing at reveals and around openings is a technical matter for a qualified professional, and it is where difficulties most often begin.

Note whether a curtain pole, blind, shutter or track is fixed above or beside a window on that wall, and ask where each would be fixed afterwards.

Window dressings are fixed into whatever was there before, and their fixings rarely survive a change of wall face unchanged.

Walk each wall to both corners and note what a lining would meet at either end, whether an internal wall, a shared wall, a chimney breast or a bay.

Naming what is at each end turns a vague idea about a wall into something a professional can actually respond to.

Ask what happens where a lined outside wall meets a wall running back into the house, and write down the answer you are given.

Junction detailing where a lining meets an internal wall is for a qualified professional to resolve, not a decision to be taken on site.

Note where an upper floor meets the outside wall, and ask what happens along that line if the floor above is not being opened up.

What happens where floors meet a lined wall is a technical question; ask a qualified professional rather than assuming it is straightforward.

Record whether ceilings on that wall are being taken down for any other reason, since that changes what can be reached at the top of the wall.

The head of a wall is easy to deal with while a ceiling is open and awkward once it has been made good and decorated.

Write down which walls in each room you are prepared to have disturbed and which must be left untouched, such as one carrying a fitted alcove unit.

Ask in what order the electrical work, the lining and the plastering need to happen, and who is responsible for calling each trade in.

Owners often end up coordinating by default, and knowing the order in advance is the difference between one pass and several return visits.

Note where radiators, valves and pipe tails sit on the walls concerned, and ask who is responsible for moving each of them and at what point.

Moving radiators, pipework or any part of a heating system is work for a qualified professional and should never be arranged informally.

Record the sockets, switches, aerial points, thermostats and door entry units on those walls, and ask how each would be brought forward.

The position of electrical accessories and cabling within any wall build up must be settled by a qualified electrical professional.

Ask whether each room has to be emptied completely or can be worked around, and establish who moves the furniture and where it is stored.

Storage during the work is a real problem that quietly becomes the owner's responsibility unless it is agreed at the very start.

Write down which parts of the work you intend to arrange yourself, because split responsibility is where the gaps in a scope appear.

Every boundary between one person's scope and another's is a place where something can be assumed by both and done by neither.

Decide which rooms have to remain usable throughout and which you can genuinely give up, and be honest about where everybody would sleep.

A plan that assumes the household can float between rooms tends to collapse as soon as the first room is opened up.

Note where dust would travel in this particular house, including up a staircase, through an open plan space or along a service riser.

Dust follows the layout of the building, and owners who map it in advance protect the things they actually care about.

Record whether anyone in the household is sensitive to dust or fumes, and raise it before any materials or methods are settled.

Concerns about dust, fumes or unfamiliar existing materials in a wall belong with a qualified professional before work is planned.

Write down where the household would eat, work and wash if a particular room were out of use, rather than assuming it will sort itself out.

The rooms that matter most day to day are often the ones with the coldest walls, which is exactly the conflict to face early.

Note which rooms hold things that cannot easily be moved, such as a piano, a large tank, an aquarium or heavy shelving fixed to the wall.

Immovable items decide the order of the work far more often than anybody's stated preference does.

Raise any damp patch, tide mark, salt bloom or musty smell on the wall concerned before a lining is discussed at all.

Lining over an unresolved damp problem hides it and makes any later investigation more destructive than it needed to be.

Ask how moisture is expected to behave within the wall once the inside face is lined, and what that answer actually rests on.

What happens to moisture once a wall is lined is technical work; accept an answer on it only from a suitably qualified professional.

Ask what ventilation the proposal assumes in each room, paying particular attention to a kitchen, a bathroom or a room where laundry is dried.

Ventilation provision needs a qualified professional to consider; never assume existing openings remain adequate once a room has been lined.

Note where the wall is hidden behind something nobody has looked behind for a long time, such as a fitted cupboard or a boxed in corner.

The parts of a wall that have not been seen for years are precisely where surprises turn up once work begins.

Ask what the proposal assumes about the outside face of the same wall, including its condition, its finish and the rainwater goods above it.

The state of the outer face affects what happens inside; ask a qualified professional to consider both faces of the wall together.

Ask what may be fixed into the finished lining and how, including a shelf, a wall mounted screen, a curtain pole, a handrail and a heavy mirror.

This single question changes how usable a room is afterwards, and the answer varies considerably between different approaches.

Note which walls currently carry heavy or awkward items and write down where those items would live once the wall face has changed.

Owners rarely realise until afterwards that the wall they hang everything on is the one being lined.

Ask how the finished surface should be decorated, and whether anything in particular should be avoided when it is.

Some finishes have preferences about what goes on them, and the person decorating is frequently told nothing at all about it.

Record what to do if the lining is knocked, cracked or has to be opened up for a repair later on, and who would carry that out.

Local repairs happen sooner than owners expect, usually the first time somebody moves a piece of furniture across a room.

Ask whether skirtings, architraves and electrical accessories will sit proud, flush or set back once everything is complete, and look at an example.

Photograph each wall before it is closed up, showing pipe runs, cable routes and anything fixed back to the original wall behind.

These photographs are the only map of what is behind the surface, and they are worth more than any written description of it.

Note on a room sketch where any fixing points or timbers behind the lining were placed, and keep it with your property papers.

Knowing where something can be fixed is the difference between hanging a shelf yourself and calling somebody out to find a fixing.

Write down which rooms were lined, which were left alone, and the reason for each decision, including the options you considered and rejected.

A deliberate exclusion is a decision worth defending later, whereas an unexplained gap simply looks like an oversight to whoever comes next.

Keep the paperwork describing what was used and who carried out the work, together with anything you were told about maintaining it.

Note which of your questions were answered with generalities rather than specifics, and put those back in writing before the work is agreed.

A general reassurance is not an answer, and the difference between the two becomes obvious only when something later goes wrong.