Old gas fire was condemned, so being middle class we of course opted to have a wood burning stove installed.

House is a 1905 single skin detached with suspended floor in the lounge, but installation was fine enough despite the old fire being off-centre in the existing fireplace, so the fitters needed to move everything to the left a bit.

On cutting out the new hole, what we thought was detached plaster underneath the lining-paper covered wall, the fitters exposed what appears to be a chipboard lining with apparently a tar used to adhere the chipboard to the wall. As he pointed out, not exactly the most fire-retardant covering to have in a house...

So we will be having the whole wall stripped back and re-covered reasonably quickly in the new year. Not DIY, but wondering what input I should / could have on the spec of what is put in place.

Its a fairly significant wall which faces broadly ESE, running for about 8m on a long thin room. There is one wooden double glazed window on that wall, plus a radiator (and the fire place), the main window in the room though is single-glazed original glazing, and the floor is suspended with bare floorboards. It is the coldest room in the house (before the new fire is working) and can get a bit of a draught going if the wind is in the €œwrong€� direction.

Assuming we dont really want to lose floor space (so Im ruling out creating an air-gap with a batten frame etc), and at the moment are constraining ourselves to thinking about only having that one wall re-done, what are the recommendations for materials assuming we get everything removed back to the brickwork? Are we likely to be creating ourselves some damp issues if we go for a top end insulating plasterboard etc?

Any pitfalls that Im wilfully or unwittingly ignoring?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Matt