         
Blog posts by tina
Living in an eco-renovated home
The major work on our home was finished almost five months ago, with most of the little bits and pieces completed a few weeks ago, and only the inevitable final bits of re-decorating waiting to be finished. Now that memories of the disruption of the renovation work are less vivid, it's a good time to write about just how pleased we are with the changes. To start with - the energy and carbon savings have been substantial. Comparing the first two months of this year with last, we have saved 20% of our gas consumption, which I would estimate means the insulation work has resulted in a heating energy saving of 30%. This is probably a conservative estimate, in that this year was colder than last (so more heating energy needed to achieve the same internal temperature) and I haven't corrected for that in the 30% figure. We'll keep monitoring over the coming months and see how that figure develops next heating season. Secondly, I would say the house is definitely more thermally comfortable - even though we've ensured we haven't raised our internal temperatures. The walls aren't cold any more, there are no draughts from the floorboards and the temperature stays very constant. Even at the coldest part of the winter, when our heating was off overnight, the room temperatures only dropped by at most 3 degrees Celcius. Thirdly, when we walk back into the house after being away for a couple of days it smells faintly of new wood. Prior to the work, it used to smell slightly of depressing damp. The eco-renovation work (and associated work) has definitely resolved our damp and condensation problems. Another benefit, almost beyond price, has been the total lack of slugs since the work! Given how well the floor insulation was detailed, this is not really a surprise. Although, I wouldn't really put anything past slugs... On to cost - this has not been a cheap exercise. If we add together the cost of external and internal wall insulation and the underfloor insulation, and compare it with the energy savings, the payback period is greater than one hundred years. That is assuming no addition to the capital value of the house, present day gas prices etc. The cost of the external wall insulation worked out at around £150/m2. Internal wall insulation may have cost as much as twice that - but those figures are very difficult to work out as we had a lot of other work done at the same time by the same people, and most of the cost was related to labour and not materials. I think our internal insulation costs were particularly high because of the period features we retained, and the fact that this was a fairly new area of work for some of the people involved, and they were having to learn as they went along. The good thing is that I am convinced the work was extremely meticulous and of very high quality - but we have had to pay for that attention to detail. Hopefully, as expertise in the sector grows, prices will fall. Overall, we are very happy with the work that has been done. Of course it would have been great if it were less expensive - but the cost was in line with our expectations - and it has had important benefits beyond just the energy savings which were our main goal. We are hoping others can learn from our experience and will be opening our home as part of Heritage Open Days, 11 and 12 September 2010.
Happy New Year
Before Christmas most of the remaining work on our insulation was completed, and we were able to start living properly in our home again. As well as the insulation work, we had a new British oak floor fitted, to replace the somewhat battered and woodwormed previous floorboards. It looks rather lovely, as do the insulated walls and details around the windows and ceilings. I doubt anyone would notice we've had internal insulation added, unless we pointed it out. We're very keen to find out how much energy the added insulation (and much improved air tightness) is saving - but it's too soon to really know as the builders only left the week before Christmas. However, our heating and hot water energy consumption in the two weeks before and after Christmas was more than a quarter lower this year than last - and clearly this year is much colder! Still, we'll need rather more time to monitor 'after' before we can say how much energy and carbon is being saved. I was speaking to a neighbour with a house of a similar age, and she said they were really having problems keeping the bedrooms in the old part of the house warm enough overnight in this cold weather. Their temperature was dropping to 12C - whereas I don't think our has dropped below 16C (with the rooms generally at 18C when the heating is on). We have bought a couple of temperature data monitors, so should have proper data on this soon.
Week 10: The beginning of the end?
A lot of progress has been made in the past week and a half. All the internal insulation is now installed, there is a first coat of lime plaster on all surfaces, and a final coat on some areas. Insulation has also been added within the mini 'roof' space above our living room box bay window and an area of the living room ceiling which was in poor condition has been replastered. In addition, we have had new wooden double-glazed sash windows installed in the box bay, as it made sense to do this in conjunction with insulating around the window area. Several years ago we had the rest of the sash windows replaced with modern double glazed ones, as they were not in great condition, draughty, prone to condensation etc. At that time we decided against replacing the ones in the bay, due to cost. However, we have had to resort to plastic film over the bay windows in winter to cut down draughts (despite having had them 'professionally' draught proofed) and reduce condensation - which would hardly be a good look in a supposedly eco-renovated property. So new windows it is! They do look very nice and that area of the room is much cosier than it was - even before the radiator has been replaced. Today a man came and created new ceiling cornice to replace what had to be taken down to install the insulation. It looks very good. Another nice period detail which has been retained is a cutaway shape in the walls next to the bay window (see photo, which will explain this better than I can). The main work remaining inside is to put on the final coat of lime plaster in most areas, put the radiators on, add, sand and seal the wooden floor on top of the existing hardboard and other finishing details. Outside, work has started on adding conventional external insulation to the bottom part of the wall, below the damp proof course, where eco-materials weren't suitable. It certainly feels that we're nearing the end, and that by Christmas all of the major work will be complete.
Week 8: Internal wall insulation
We are now half-way through the installation of the Pavatex internal wall insulation. Work has been completed in the dining room, just the living room to go. The insulation is 6cm thick and is installed by screwing onto the wall, using insulated screws to fix it in place. We had wondered how it would look to add this extra thickness internally - but even before plaster has been added on top it looks great. It may be partly psychological - but the room does feel cosier already. Certainly, not having a radiator in the dining room (temporarily removed) hasn't been a problem - the heating drifting in from the hall and kitchen have kept us perfectly warm. Not only that, but since the floor insulation has been finished we no longer have any visiting slugs! Given that it looks like the adding internal insulation isn't going to look 'wrong' in the house, it does make me wonder whether we should have thought more seriously about going for completely internal insulation rather than external insulation on the side wall, and internal on the back and front. However, the external insulation is thicker - 10cm - and we wouldn't have wanted that thickness internally. It will be interesting to look at the costs of the external vs internal insulation when all the bills have come in.
Week 6: Underfloor insulation complete
Our underfloor insulation is now just about complete. It was installed by attaching netting hammocks (as they almost certainly aren't known in the trade) to the floor joists to hold the insulation, and then cutting the hemp batts to fit. The hemp has been installed to the full depth of the joists - so that's 150mm in the living and dining rooms and 100mm in the hallway (where the original joists were retained, as they were in reasonable condition). While the floors were up, the central heating pipes were insulated - they previously had no insulation around them at all! New airbricks are also being installed in several places below the floor level, to ensure adequate ventilation. This should ensure when the floor is next taken up - hopefully not for many, many years - the joists are still in perfect condition. Our internal walls (i.e. front, back plus an overlap with external insulation to eliminate any potential cold spots) are now ready for installing the insulation. Firstly the existing (gypsum) plaster had to removed. Then a layer of lime plaster has been added to make a smooth surface on which to attach the Pavatex insulation. The major reason for removing the original plaster is to ensure problem-free moisture movement within the insulated wall (the insulation system is only guaranteed if conventional plaster is removed). Outside, the roofers have been working on extending the roof to cover the external insulation; the slates look to be a good match, and there's just one half of the verge to be sealed with mortar. Fortunately, despite yesterday's gales, the roof is still attached to the rest of the house - perhaps due to the starring role of the clothes pegs. Our builders have been doing an excellent job of keeping most of the house habitable during the renovation work, but we're now looking forward to the switch away from 'creative destruction' to re-instating our walls and floors.
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