insulation

barry99

hey
I'm planning of doing a bit of renovations to my house. Particularly concentrating on insulation and making the house "warmer". My parents did a lot of work on the house in the 80's, but nothing much has been done since.

I've had an engineer in and he has given me some recommendations as to what would be the most advantageous things that could be done in order to properly insulate the house. I can't afford to do all the work at once so i plan to do the most beneficial recommendations this summer and the rest in a year or two.
He suggested i should do the following:

Replace window frames (currently aluminium frames from the 80's)
Replace glazing (currently double glazed again fitted in the 80's)
Replace attic insulation (currently fibreglass but does not completely cover the attic)
Replace external doors (two aluminium from the 80's, one PVC from the 90's)
Add extra wall insulation (cavities were beaded in the 80's)
Change single radiators to double rads

There are a good few other recommendations but they are smaller ie thermostats on rads which i'm not too concerned with at the moment.

Which of the above would i notice the biggest improvement from?

DOCARCH

All I will say is don't ignore the smaller measures.

If you were to do a cost benefit analysis or looking for the best return on each € spent, very often a heating control upgrade comes out on top!

BryanF

1. air-tightness (draft proofing) measures generally and on all of the below
2. attic insulation
3. wall insulation
4. water tank and pipework insulation + heat Controls
5. windows doors sometimes a lobby if that feasible
6. boiler/ rads

basically building fabric should come first.. but as Docarch says on an energy calculator a new boiler and controls may be rated more highly and show quicker cost payback, although I'm not a fan of improving the heating when its still heading straight out under the door.


please note that as you insulate and and improve air-tightness you've got make sure you have adequate permanent ventilation (as distinct from drafts), many older homes don't consider this and as condensation issues arise people blame on the new insulation.

barry99

BryanF wrote: »

1. air-tightness (draft proofing) measures generally and on all of the below
2. attic insulation
3. wall insulation
4. water tank and pipework insulation + heat Controls
5. windows doors sometimes a lobby if that feasible
6. boiler/ rads

basically building fabric should come first.. but as Docarch says on an energy calculator a new boiler and controls may be rated more highly and show quicker cost payback, although I'm not a fan of improving the heating when its still heading straight out under the door.


please note that as you insulate and and improve air-tightness you've got make sure you have adequate permanent ventilation (as distinct from drafts), many older homes don't consider this and as condensation issues arise people blame on the new insulation.

I'd be in the same boat and would prefer to try and improve heat retention before improving my heating system.

I have some very leaky windows at the moment in the house so I would have thought these would be best to replace at the same time as making the house more airtight. I have a bit of knowledge of glazing but not much on frames. What are the best type of frames available at the moment?

I definitely need to provide better ventilation, at present the only vents are between the suspended timber floors and the foundations. These have been there since the house was first built. I would imagine these don't offer any ventilation to the rooms and only vent the gap between the foundation and floor.

barry99

DOCARCH wrote: »

All I will say is don't ignore the smaller measures.

If you were to do a cost benefit analysis or looking for the best return on each € spent, very often a heating control upgrade comes out on top!

I would agree that the small measures are very very important. I can afford to implement them now so they will be getting the go ahead no matter what other measures I decide on.

cozzie55

Most frames today are far better than the old aluminium frames. They were bad at keeping in heat as it just flowed through them basically

I'd be looking towards PVC or even insulated PVC frames but it depends what colour and style you want. i.e sash windows or similar to your currently aluminium ones. I don't think PVC comes in a similar colour grey.

I would be more worried about your glazing than your frames anyway. Go for double or triple glazed with as big an air gap as you can in them.

DOCARCH

Again from a bang for buck point of view, I'd suggest the following:

1. heating controls + tank and pipework insulation;
2. attic insulation;
3. windows and external doors (this will cover much of draft proofing);
4. boiler/rads;
5. wall insulation;
6. draft lobby/porch.

Again, this is from a return on each € spent point of view. In this case, I have put the wall insulation down the list as the existing cavity wall insulation will have some benefit over and above an uninsulated wall.

Having done cost benefit calculations for energy upgrades for houses wall insulation actually does come down the list in terms of return for money spent. Heating control upgrde (as opposed to boiler replacemnet) usually always comes pretty high on the list.

What type of floor is in the house? If it is an uninsulated suspended timber floor then insulating and adding an airtight membrane should also be thrown into the mix.

BryanF

barry99 wrote: »

What are the best type of frames available at the moment?

ha - the best:) or will we get into a conversation about what can you afford. my preference is for thermally broken Ala-clad windows but there are more expensive than uPVC. in retro-fit I would say go for 1.2wm2k overall installed units (that doesn't mean just getting 0.6 triple glazing and crap frames) and only go lower if your going to deal with the overall wall insulation and thermal bridging.

I definitely need to provide better ventilation, at present the only vents are between the suspended timber floors and the foundations. These have been there since the house was first built. I would imagine these don't offer any ventilation to the rooms and only vent the gap between the foundation and floor.

this is like the ventilation in your attic the vents under floor are for underfloor (btw the floor should be insulated and sealed with air-tightness membrane with vents staying active to ciruclate air under the floor)

barry99

DOCARCH wrote: »

Again from a bang for buck point of view, I'd suggest the following:

1. heating controls + tank and pipework insulation;
2. attic insulation;
3. windows and external doors (this will cover much of draft proofing);
4. boiler/rads;
5. wall insulation;
6. draft lobby/porch.

Again, this is from a return on each € spent point of view. In this case, I have put the wall insulation down the list as the existing cavity wall insulation will have some benefit over and above an uninsulated wall.

Having done cost benefit calculations for energy upgrades for houses wall insulation actually does come down the list in terms of return for money spent. Heating control upgrde (as opposed to boiler replacemnet) usually always comes pretty high on the list.

What type of floor is in the house? If it is an uninsulated suspended timber floor then insulating and adding an airtight membrane should also be thrown into the mix.

opps i left out the insulating the suspended floor. That was another of the recommendations.
At present there is no insulation under them. How big is the job of insulating under these? Does it involve taking up all of the floor boards?

As i said the heating controls are going in. I can't figure out how we've left it go this long without thermostats all over the house. I don't think its possible to zone the house as all the rads are on the one loop which is pity it would be very good in our case.

barry99

BryanF wrote: »

ha - the best:) or will we get into a conversation about what can you afford. my preference is for thermally broken Ala-clad windows but there are more expensive than uPVC. in retro-fit I would say go for 1.2wm2k overall installed units (that doesn't mean just getting 0.6 triple glazing and crap frames) and only go lower if your going to deal with the overall wall insulation and thermal bridging.

this is like the ventilation in your attic the vents under floor are for underfloor (btw the floor should be insulated and sealed with air-tightness membrane with vents staying active to ciruclate air under the floor)

For now price isn't an issue and is the reason I'm going to do the work in stages.... well within reason. I plan on doing the job right once so I want to put in the top spec if possible for everything.

BryanF

cozzie55 wrote: »

I would be more worried about your glazing than your frames anyway.

I don't believe this is the case at all - in fact its the other way around.

DOCARCH

barry99 wrote: »

opps i left out the insulating the suspended floor. That was another of the recommendations.
At present there is no insulation under them. How big is the job of insulating under these? Does it involve taking up all of the floor boards?

As i said the heating controls are going in. I can't figure out how we've left it go this long without thermostats all over the house. I don't think its possible to zone the house as all the rads are on the one loop which is pity it would be very good in our case.

I'm afraid you pretty much do have to take up all the floor boards to insulate the existing suspended timber floor (well to do it properly and maintain ventilation - I have seen suggestion before from companies of pumping foam under the floor!) however with an airtight membrane, and insulation, you'd be surprised by the amount of drafts/air infiltration this could remove from the house.

You can put thermostatic radiator valves on all the radiators - probably around €35/radiator (fitted).