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How to insulate and Gyprock seasoned jarrah frame?

I have a 1950s cottage with a seasoned jarrah frame and am removing asbestos room by room to add insulation and replace with gyprock. My questions are:

The studs are placed at irregular and usually imperial measurements as the house was built before the metric system was adopted in the 1960s (13 inches, 8 inches, 4.5 inches). Only some of the walls have 600mm spacing between studs. Can I cut insulation to the right width, and if so, which insulation should I use?

Will a normal electric nail gun be powerful enough to attach insulation to the jarrah studs? If not, what should I use?

Do I have to screw the gyprock to the jarrah or can I just use adhesive? If screws are required, should I do pilot holes, and will a normal power drill be up for the job?

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brynsmith

Photo of one of the walls

EricL

Hello @brynsmith

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. it's sensational to have you join us, and thanks for sharing your question about your jarrah frame.

In the interest of health and safety, I recommend stopping work immediately. Disturbing asbestos-containing materials can release hazardous fibres into the air, which pose a serious risk to your health if inhaled. Exposure to asbestos dust is associated with severe and potentially life-threatening illnesses.

All asbestos materials must be handled and removed only by a trained and certified asbestos removal specialist. Under no circumstances should these materials be disturbed, handled, or disposed of without proper qualifications and controls in place. Asbestos waste must also be transported and disposed of in strict accordance with applicable regulations and cannot be taken to general waste facilities.

For your safety and the safety of others in the vicinity, please cease all current activity and arrange for a licensed professional to test, assess and manage the situation appropriately.

Once the asbestos has been addressed and your home made safe, you can then continue with your renovation.

In regards to the wall insulation I propose looking at getting wall batts that are close to the sizes that you need. It might be necessary to fill in the gaps due to the non-standard spacing of the studs so that the walls are fully covered. Smaller sections can be cut from the 450mm size ones, but if it is more practical to get the wider ones and cut those down to size then that would be the way to go. I propose measuring all the gaps and matching it to the available batts at the store so that you can calculate how much you'll need.

I propose looking at the Knauf and Earthwool brands to see which one will suite your needs. it is not necessary to nail the insulation to the stud, they are often push to fit and held in place with compression and friction. You'll get a better idea once you see the guide.

I'm not sure if your nail gun will be able to penetrate deeply into the Jarrah stud. I propose doing a test to see if it can penetrate deeply enough into the jarrah substrate.

Let me call on our experienced members @Nailbag, @Dave-1 and @Remarka6le for their recommendations.

Here are some handy step-by-step guides that will help.

Please remember to wear personal protection such as gloves, goggles and a mask when working on your project.

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

Eric

brynsmith

Hey Eric - the asbestos in question was removed by a licensed professional and checked by a separate environmental consultant. I am only putting the insulation/walls up on studs after the asbestos is removed in each room.

Thanks for your recommendations, looking forward to further advice from other team members.

EricL

Hello @brynsmith

Thank you so much for letting us know that you engaged the services of licensed professional and an environmental consultant. I just wanted to make sure that are doing your D.I.Y project in the safest manner possible.

Eric

Nailbag

Hi @brynsmith

You can definitely trim insulation batts as required to fit within the studs which, is quite normal practice. Thinner for narrow spaces and offcuts used for even smaller ones or to add to wider ones. Bread knifes can be good to cut the batts with.

Tucking batts behind cables is a simple method of securing them in place, otherwise I often staple/tack ducting heating strapping across the studs which, I can't see that Bunnings sell.

Most brad nailers or more powerful nail guns will barely dent Jarrah studs, its incredible dense, especially aged studs like you have. You only need short sharp ended tacks, or you could try a stapler that uses T-50 staples. get short pointed tip ones.

Nailbag

MitchellMc

On a side note, @brynsmith, while we use metric measurements, much of our building system is essentially a metric translation of old imperial sizing.

For example, stud spacings of 450 mm and 600 mm correspond closely to the old 1.5-foot and 2-foot centres. Our standard 90 × 45 mm framing is the metric equivalent of 4 × 2-inch timber. The same applies to sheet product sizes, like 2400 × 1200 mm, as these are effectively the old 8 ft × 4 ft sheets, just expressed in metric.

There are some differences, of course. Traditional 4 × 2-inch timber referred to rough-sawn sizes, whereas our 90 × 45 mm timber is dressed and milled, so the finished dimensions are noticeably smaller.

Mitchell

Dave-1

Good Morning @brynsmith

Yeah I was thinking you were removing the abspestos yoruself and I was going Nooooooo :) Glad its clarified.

@Nailbag 's suggestion on how to tack the insulation in is the way Id go as well. Jarrah is "hard" and it lasts years for that reason. You are only needing to hold it in place until the plaster goes up. When I waslining my garage (and yeah teh spacings were not always consistant) I marked on the floor and the ceiling where the studs were so I could find them whne I was installing the sheets of plaster.

Dave

brynsmith

Thanks for the advice all, in summary:

Trimming the insulation batts is fine. Use a breadknife. I can trim up/down or across the batt to fit it into the irregular gaps between studs
Nailers and most nail guns will not work on seasoned jarrah studs. Use insulation strapping, tacks or a stapler that uses T-50 staples.
Can I get a link to the sort of tacks recommended for this? Also dumb question, how do you attach a tack?
I found this for insulation strapping, is it suitable?

Final questions:

When putting the screws into the gyprock sheets, will a normal drill be able to handle jarrah?
Do I drill pilot holes? Do I need to do anything to make sure drilling the pilot holes doesn't mess up the gyprock sheet?
Lastly, one of the walls backs onto an extension to the house where the floors don't match up. The result is this little gap to under the house. How should I plug this gap before installing plaster sheets?

MitchellMc

Hi @brynsmith ,

For holding the insulation in place, use blued tacks. They’re driven in with a hammer.
The insulation strapping you found is suitable, so that will work fine.
For fixing your gyprock (plasterboard) to the jarrah studs, a normal 18 V or 240 V drill will handle it, but you must pre-drill pilot holes into the jarrah first, otherwise the screws can snap. Nothing special is required for the plasterboard itself; simply position the sheet, drill through the plasterboard into the stud, and screw it in.
For the gap under the wall where the floors don’t match, you can block it up with timber before installing the plaster sheets to fill any voids.

Mitchell

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