ᐅ Making Basement Space Usable – Insulation

Hello everyone,

I am currently a bit uncertain about renovating a basement room. The house, built in 1985, has a full basement, and there is a room with a window (~1 sqm (11 sq ft)) and a radiator. So far, wooden wall panels were screwed onto horizontal battens, and the exterior walls behind the panels were “insulated” with about 2 cm (1 inch) of Styrofoam. Now, I don’t find the wood look very appealing and want to reclad the walls accordingly. I have removed the wooden panels and battens, revealing concrete. I have the following ideas but am not sure if all of this will work or makes sense. The room is intended to be used as an office/guest room.

A. Exterior Walls
I plan to glue climate boards (insulation boards designed for moisture regulation) to the walls (according to relevant regulations) and cover them with breathable roll-on and brush-on plaster. The goal is for the boards to provide insulation but also absorb and release moisture and hopefully look good. Is this feasible for a layperson?

B. Interior Walls
At the moment, I intend just to prime the walls and apply breathable roll-on and brush-on plaster here as well. If I decide to install any boards on these walls, what would you recommend? Climate boards are quite expensive, so I don’t want to cover every wall with them.

C. Ceiling
There is underfloor heating in the room above the basement room. Would it make sense to insulate the basement ceiling in that case?

D. Floor
What type of flooring, suitable for a basement that will be lived in and easy for a layperson to install, would you recommend?

The outlets and electrical cables will be directly on the bare wall. I have often seen cutouts in the climate boards for outlets but not for electrical cables. Could I simply glue two rows of climate boards with a corresponding gap between them so that the cables run in between?

It would be great if someone could advise whether this could work or make sense… I’m really quite inexperienced in this.

Best regards

Hello :-) I’m not familiar with climate boards, but we insulated from the inside, then plastered and painted. For the interior walls, we added some insulation to reduce thermal bridges. Otherwise, we primed, plastered, and painted the concrete wall. The electrical wiring was surface-mounted (in those rectangular cable ducts, whose name I don’t remember right now), as were the sockets. I would avoid any gap between the interior insulation because of thermal bridges.

For flooring, we have tiles and a luxury vinyl floor that is suitable for wet rooms.

Are you planning to apply for any subsidies or grants? Because ceiling insulation and removing the radiators in the basement could then be options.