ESB meter box - thermal bridging issue in passive/low-energy house

Eoghan Barra

Hi all,

We're building a house and trying to make it as energy efficient as possible. The Supergrund insulated foundations and slab are in and we're about to get going on the walls. These will be cavity wall construction, mainly for economic reasons and because it's familiar to me. The buildup will be as follows, from the outside in:

12mm cement render
100mm standard solid concrete block
200mm rockwool full-fill cavity batts*
140mm alphatherm lightweight blocks
12mm plaster straight onto alphatherm

*for anyone interested, the insulation batts will be in 2 layers of 100mm, with diagonally staggered joints. Wall ties will be low thermal conductivity qwik-fix grp.

Now I'm wondering what to do r.e. the esb meter box, which will protrude into the cavity by about 55mm, thereby reducing the insulation to only 145mm in that area, which I would rather avoid. There isn't any garage, garden wall, pier or anything else like that as an alternative position, so it will have to be in the house. Has anyone else in our situation been able to find a solution to this?

Any (useful or well intentioned) advice gratefully received.

BryanF

Eoghan, I'd be more concerned about your trades and how well they insulate and ensure air-tightness at this location over the 50mm encroachment into the cavity

sydthebeat

install the meter on an out crop wall from the side, or build an independent free standing wall altogether. Theres no requirement for the meter to be on the actual building.

DOCARCH

sydthebeat wrote: »

Theres no requirement for the meter to be on the actual building.

....and the ESB will not allow you put the meter inside (the house).

Eoghan Barra

Hi BryanF,

I'll be installing the insulation myself, and depending on the plaster to render the wall airtight (tape around windows etc though obviously)

sydthebeat,

you have me thinking. Do you mean to use thicker blocks around the area where the box will be and have the whole thing project a couple of inches from the wall? a bit unsightly, but I'd do it if necessary to avoid reducing insulation.

Thanks for replies guys (incl. DOCARCH)

sydthebeat

Eoghan Barra wrote: »

Hi BryanF,

I'll be installing the insulation myself, and depending on the plaster to render the wall airtight (tape around windows etc though obviously)

sydthebeat,

you have me thinking. Do you mean to use thicker blocks around the area where the box will be and have the whole thing project a couple of inches from the wall? a bit unsightly, but I'd do it if necessary to avoid reducing insulation.

Thanks for replies guys (incl. DOCARCH)

You could do that but What I would do is build a wall perpendicular to the side wall 2 m behind the building line purely for the meter box alone. You could incorporate it into a small fuel store if you wish.

Another option is simply to build a free standing wall and screen with landscaping.

Eoghan Barra

Excellent suggestions there, sydthebeat.

Given the layout of the building and spaces around it, I will probably do as I imagined you were advising at first: I'll use 6" soaps to form the ope, thin edge facing out; that way they should project out by about 50mm, creating a void deep enough to allow the insulation remain 200mm thick behind the box.

Problem solved thanks a lot.

sydthebeat

not really what i was suggesting but glad your happy

im not a huge fan if locating the hockey stick in the cavity.... if you took the meter box off the main house wall, you can bring it up internally via ducting.

DOCARCH

This may be similar to what Syd is suggesting. See bottom right hand corner of the attached photo.

This was done on a job to a Victorian house in Dublin - for (fairly obvious) cosmetic reasons we could not put an ESB and gas meter box on the external wall of the house so we built a little brick pier, capped with granite, to house the meter boxes. Over time plants will mature to somewhat hide the pier.

Have done similar to other terraced houses where you don't want to locate the meter boxes within the existing external wall.

Just to note that these have been done on refurbishment jobs where we are relocating meter from inside to out. I know ESB usually want meter at 1.2m off the ground - in a refurbishment job, ESB are happy just to get the meter out of the house - not sure how sympathetic they would be on a new build?

If considering something like this on a new build - consider talking to the ESB area engineer.

sydthebeat

thats the kind of idea i was proposing...

it can be a on free standing wall, or a wall at 90 deg to the side wall....

youd see this quite often in terraced or duplex type houses.