Blog posts in January 2010 by tina

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.

Blog post by tina on Jan. 05, 2010 at 10:36 p.m.

Tags: temperature

Posted by tina 2 years, 2 months ago:

Linda

Many apologies for hugely delayed rely.

The work was managed by our builder, Dan Browne (07989 171784). He and his colleagues did all the work - they ordered the insulation (after discussing with us the pros and cons of different options), took up the old floorboards, put down the insulation, and then put in a new floor. I imagine you could do some of this work yourself, as it doesn't seem hugely technical - but that wasn't something we were in a position to consider.