         
Blog posts in October 2009 by tinaUnfortunately preparing our front room for internal and underfloor insulation involves making things far worse before they get better. Plaster has been removed from the walls where insulation will be added, the ceiling coving has been removed temporarily and all the floorboards are up. As well as being necessary for adding the underfloor insulation, floorboard removal also allows proper inspection of all the existing underfloor timbers and checking for damp etc. As the existing joists are not in the best shape, and already extensively patched we'll probably be having new joists installed early next week. I suppose the real suprise would have been no unpleasant suprises under the floorboards... There is still some debate about what the best form of underfloor insulation will be - the decision really depends on what the damp specialist finds. If there is a damp problem then paper-based options would be ruled out. Hemp might be suitable - we'll just have to wait and see. Blog post by tina on Oct. 29, 2009 at 10:38 p.m. No comments have been posted yet. After the first layer of render was completed at the end of Week 1, Week 2 involved simply waiting for the render to dry. Tomorrow, unless there is torrential rain, our contractor - Merl Cunliffe - will be coming back with a colleague to put on the final layer of render. This all has to be done in one day, to get a good appearance. After that layer has dried, it will be painted. Then there will be some further work in extending the roof by a couple of tiles, to protect the top of the insulation from rain. The materials for the external insulation have cost around £3000. Merl will work for 7 - 8 days in total, there will be some additional labour in extending the roof tiles, and the cost of scaffolding to add on top. Not surprisingly, this will end up costing many times more than getting insulation blown in to cavity walls. If I recall correctly from a previous home, that took two men in a van about three hours to complete (for all the flats in a block of four) and cost a subsidised £50. Happy days! I blame the Edwardians... Blog post by tina on Oct. 21, 2009 at 8:50 p.m. No comments have been posted yet. At the end of the fourth day of working, all the external insulation has been fitted to the side wall of our house and work has started on rendering to make it water-proof. We have added 100mm of Pavatex woodfibre, which when combined with specific render is called 'Diffutherm'. The Pavatex is 'made from over 95% waste softwood and under 5% inert water proofing additives'. When added to our solid brick walls, the U value should improve from around 2.4 W/m2K to 0.33 W/m2K. This is about the same standard of insulation as required by Building Regs for new homes in 2002. In any case, you can certainly feel the temperature difference between the insulated side wall and the uninsulated (as yet) back and front. All has gone very smoothly so far - even the scaffolders turning up a day late didn't cause major problems. Blog post by tina on Oct. 08, 2009 at 9:20 p.m. No comments have been posted yet. Day two and despite some disappointing weather (following a long period of drought), the installer is making good progress. One of the plus points about Pavatex is that it is bio-degradable. This makes a difference during the installation. Instead of lots of polystyrene drifting around the garden (previous experience), we're hoping to chuck all the small offcuts onto the compost heap. Blog post by tina on Oct. 06, 2009 at 1:10 p.m. No comments have been posted yet. We live in an Edwardian semi in Oxford and are about to begin eco-renovation works. The main work will be installing underfloor insulation under the wooden floor downstairs, insulating the side wall of the house externally and the front and back walls internally. We will be using paper-based insulation under the floors and wood-fibre insulation (Pavatex) internally and externally. The external wall will be finished with a lime render. Previously we have installed additional loft insulation, double glazing, draft proofing, extra floor and wall insulation in an extension and solar water heating. Hopefully this work - as well as sorting out some (isolated) woodworm, condensation and slug(!) problems - will make the house much more cosy and considerably reduce our energy use for heating. Blog post by tina on Oct. 01, 2009 at 10:25 p.m. Posted by tina 2 years, 7 months ago:
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