silver foil backed plasterboard and wireless devices
Fergus McMenemie
How common is silver foil backed plaster board? Almost every
wall and ceiling of my house seems to use it and it generally
causes havoc with any of the wireless systems that are all
over the house. WLAN (especially 802.11a/b, g seems better),
DECT phones and now the Central Heating.
We recently had our central heating system modernised and as
part of doing so we have the house zoned with Siemens RDJ10RF
wireless thermostatic controllers for each zone. They are
proving to be unreliable. Speaking to Siemens they seem to
imply that foil backed plaster board was unheard of, and that
I cant expect their system to work in such a house.
But then again kingspan insulation etc is also foil backed and
I guess that is increasingly common?
Regards Fergus.
Andrew Gabriel
Foil backed plasterboard's use has changed over the years.
Originally, the foil was used as an insulation layer, having a
lower emmissivity than the bare board face. Its insulation
properties no longer come close to anything required nowadays,
and it's now used as a vapour barrier (and has turned into a
sheet of aluminised plastic).
However, in either case, use on internal walls would be unusual
and not normally meritted. It may be that your builder had a job
lot of it for some reason, and needed to use it up. I use it
where I need a vapour barrier, and sometimes the off-cuts will
be used where foil backed board isn't required, but that would
be just partial sheets.
TBH, I personally would tend to avoid wireless for things like
heating controls. If you do use them (particularly for things
like frost protection when you're away on holiday), make sure
you fit new batteries before you go. The old ones may well stop
working as the temperature falls, just when you need them most.
--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
Slider
"Fergus McMenemie" <fer...@twig-me-uk.not.here> wrote in message
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Why don't you move to home plugs?
Fergus McMenemie
The "house" is a colletion of very old farm buildings that
were converted into a house. Almost all of the internal walls
are original with no damp course etc. So I guess vapour barriers
were an important part of every wall.
Insualation is generally poor. The original walls seem to have
had some kind of tough paper laid against them, followed by upto
2 inches of rock wool or fibre glass then a sheet of plastic
and the foil backed plaster board.
The Natural Philosopher
common, and WiFi is a bunch of crap mostly.
I have occasional issues with a radio stat as well.
Just 20 meters via brick walls and plain stud..
YAPH
> TBH, I personally would tend to avoid wireless for things like
> heating controls. If you do use them (particularly for things
> like frost protection when you're away on holiday), make sure
> you fit new batteries before you go. The old ones may well stop
> working as the temperature falls, just when you need them most.
Though even wired progstats generally(?*) use batteries too.
* certainly the few I've played with do - anyone know of progstats that
don't?
--
John Stumbles -- http://yaph.co.uk
If we'd known how much fun grandchildren are
we'd have had them first
Alistair Robert Harley
will it work in that room?
The Natural Philosopher
yes, but not to stations outside it, is my experience.
John Weston
wrote:
>
> Alistair Robert Harley wrote:
> > if the wireless router is in a room with foil backed plasterboard..........
> > will it work in that room?
> >
Agreed - unless the signal can get in through the door, window, floor or
ceiling. The PC in another room to the wireless source is often found to
work well only in certain places and when people weren't walking about.
(standing waves?). You could use a powerline wireless access point in
the room, such as: www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-av-pew.htm - but be
careful of the amateur radio brigade complaining about powerline
networking interference... :-)
My preference would be to install a wired system, as I've done a few
times in a similarly constructed houses. The plasterboard walls over
insulated cavities make for a very easy installation, using a Bosch PMF
180E and Maplin N86CU or equivalent cable draw rods.
--
John W
I you want to mail me, replace the obvious with co.uk twice