Draughty house

Sloopy1

My house was a self build in 2007 just before air tightness became big. It's a 2 story with Ducon slabs, 6" cavity with 4" kingspan. The hollow core was never wrapped. Bottom line it is v hard to heat the house and at every spot light ope and plug socket I can feel draughts coming through..
My question is whether anyone has any idea of what could be done retrospectively to improve the situation. All comments welcome.

Johnnyhpipe

What is the wall construction? Assuming its a cavity (215 internal for hollowcore bearing - cavity - masonry outer leaf)?

a_noodle_jenny

Also see if you can get grants from SEAI and home improvement grant

Sorry I just see now your house must be built before 2006 to qualify...

My advice on it would be to hire an expert...the seai website is good in general at how to prioritize works needed and has some kind of algorithm to help homeowners justify their specific jobs to tackle first. I know usually people are advised to look at attic insulation, windows, floor (which I know when I first read it took me by surprise), sockets can also be looked at, our extractor fan in our current rental lets a lot of draughts into kitchen and Tumble dryer too...

One word of warning - and I'm such a novice at any of this but from reading on here for a number of months, a number of homeowners are querying attic condensation and mould, general condensation around houses... that ventilation is something that needs to be prioritized otherwise you create an imbalance and issues can arise thereafter

Have a plumber coke and look at your heating system too - my parents have had similar issues with their 2002 built large home - again similarly issues around draughts, cold bridging on any area that juts out from house and hard to heat... turned out that their heating system had a pile of grunge in it and was only operating on less than half tilt... I'd love if they would consider applying for the grant though and getting a number of those ongoing issues sorted...

Best of luck and hopefully my information wasn't too novice - there are some really wonderful experts on here, I'm blown away with the level of knowledge required by tradesmen working in all areas of building and maintaining houses... unfortunately there are also many who lack knowledge building and servicing houses (in the real world not on boards.ie!) who are just chancing their arm

Calahonda52

OP,
can you give the full build up details as alluded to by JP in post 2
wall construction, in detail from inside to out
eg
paint
.
.
Same with roof makeup


are eaves ventilated?
are there air vents in all rooms?
are they ducted and sealed to outside and inside?

is site exposed?

ps, the hollowcore may have been concreted so saying it was never wrapped, in isolation of further detail is not that helpful unless you can link the HC to some issues.

The more detail you tell the better the advice/ideas you will get.