Gill

Will look at optimising airflow and save the fixed field for rooms with at least one other window. I probably wasnt far off with my first plan but then the doubt crept in.

Thanks Connor - that makes sense. Building control not an issue for us but you never know know when you'll need an emergency exit. I think I can tone the window openings down a little and keep them in rooms that don't already have alternative exits.

I can't offer expertise but we're in a similar position with our bungalow refurb with water tanks in the attic. You definitely need someone to guide you on load bearing walls - we were lost with what could be done cost effectively. We were lucky to have a architect friend of a friend take a look at our place and confirm what both our plumber & electrician had called out as unlikely to be load bearing. Helped us with what was going to work well for our loose ideas within existing structure. Had we not got that advice, our next step was going to be to take a plan to a builder. Maybe a route to go down given you know what you want.

Stupid question o'clock... I'm trying to finalising a window schedule on our renovation. The plan is no trickle vents and short term the lack of insulation and various ancient extraction will provide plenty unwanted ventilation. We plan to add ventilation via MHRV as we improve insulation and air tightness. I'm wondering if I've reverted to form with the window schedule by adding openings (6 out of 9 windows) when I might not need. We're close to a busy road so aside from heavy kitchen cooking we rarely opened windows over the summer. Any experiences to draw from would be much appreciated. Is it better to have the option or is it something you thought was necessary but never actually use ? Thanks

Thanks @Kelvin Sounds like a good starting point. Seems to be a fairly limited market up here as I've not come across much by way of suppliers & fitters.

Thanks for the update @Andehhand sorry to hear that it's not working out as you'd hoped. I've started trying to get alterative quotes but it's proving difficult - at least five enquiries have not come back to me. We're now going down the route of friend of a friend who does commercial Alu fits (SAS product) in the hope they might be able to hook us up with an installer. I'm not confident we'll have made progress by the end of this year but here's hoping.

In the process of sorting windows and insulation which means we need to focus on ventilation. Will need to go down the installer route and would be interested to hear of any positive experiences folk have had for MHRV installation or alternative approaches. I'm hoping for a better experience that we're currently having trying to sort windows where it seems no one is interested in giving a quote. 🙄

Thanks for the info Andehh. We're in a similar boat with getting people to actually come and quote and getting the windows in is a pre-requisite for cavity wall insulation so I'm keen to move quickly but I also don't want to comprise on something so fundamental. I'll pop back in a few weeks if i'm still going round in circles.

Thanks. I'm just not seeing a massive performance gain for double the money. Aesthetically, they do look nicer. Can I ask if you priced any of the higher performing products out there? We could stretch further but if its more than triple the cost of upvc then I doubt I can justify when we've got plenty priorities like MHRV.

I got a couple of quotes to replace nine windows with 3G from a local fitter who uses Scotia. I'd heard good things about their upvc but was curious if our budget would stretch to aluminium. Their aluminium frames are supplied by Smart and there website is not particularly clear as their U Values note "using correct glass unit". Any have any experience positive or negative with Smart Aliterm products ? The upvc is coming in around 6500, smart alitherm a bit more than double that. Our fitter mentioned that Internorm who they also fit would be much more but unfortunately failed to quantify that (to be fair we only asked for an aluminium quote and he was unaware they had multiple suppliers). We don't want to skimp on windows as our house is electric heating only and insulating is top of the list along with noise reduction from a busy road but it looks like unless I went higher end alu supplier there's not much of a gain aside from the look over upvc.

Unless insulation quotes come back surprisingly high, I suspect i may do similar. There's no shortage of jobs I can do on my list. 🙂

Thanks a lot for all your advise. Starting to form a clearer picture now of what the right focus should be. tldr : Think my focus on underfloor insulation / windows / draft proofing & getting someone in the know to asses the brick work on the house before we look at cavity wall insulation. @Temp The outside of the building is a combination of brick and render. We've done some basic repairs to the render and it looks in decent shape. The brick work I'm not so sure on - it's pretty dated. That said, although we're west cost of Scotland the house we've not had driving rain. For the brickwork i'm assuming that's something I should get assessed. I could diy some mortar where it looks loose but I'll assume it needs someone in the know to assess suitability for cavity wall. We seem to be a bit protected from the worst of the west of Scotland weather but then we've only been in the house 5 months so I'm probably kidding myself. I may try to tackle the underfloor but probably after I look at a quote or too. The crawl space drops down further down the house and I can only imagine it'll take me weeks to do something those in the know could do in a day. I like the idea of PIR under the joints but the service pipes and cabling are making me thing that part will be the most difficult. As for fitting a new heating / DHW system - we're electric only so ASHP / UFH or oversized rads would require plumbing which is where my concern about insulating first came in. If I understand correctly, it shouldn't be a major issue if we do need change the service pipes down the line. @JohnMo We are large window rich - which is great aside from the drafts. Pretty much even room has at least 3m sq of window. They are all DG wood framed but more than half the panels are blown and when the weather took a turn for the cooler last week there was a substantial amount of condensation on the inside. We're also near a busy road and additional sound insulation is definitely something we need. I'm hoping 3G and additional insulation helps with both noise and heat retention. Looking under the house, it might have to be sheet under insulation due to the cluster of service cabling and pipes (this might be perfectly normal but looks untidy to my untrained eye). Loft we're good with +400mm insulation that hasn't covered the vents. @Marvin MVHR was on my consider list given that the attic isn't converted so less of a challenge than in some properties. I've been doing a lot of reading trying to work out if we could get the property to a standard where it would benefit. That said, we have an internal wet room with a useless extractor fan that's going to need attention as the tiling grout has failed and the paster board behind has gone. A good ventilation solution will be needed in there. I guess it's a decision for next year after we sort out immediate concerns. PV is also one of my research areas as we're electric only, large south facing roof, immersion water. I'm thinking if we can diver power to HW storage that would be a win. Maybe battery cost will come down in time to make that another feasible option. Budget wise, I'm sure we can tackle window, insulation and airtight unless the prices double again. MHVR could potentially go in there too but I think i might need to get into the realms of measuring heat loss before making a call on that. On the off chance it interests anyone I've added a couple of pics of the underfloor space and the outside render / brick. I'd be interested if any more critical eye can see any red flags (aside from the underfloor mess 🙂). Cheers.

We've been in our new place for a few months now and starting to get a handle on how the house works (and where is doesn't). It's a converted substation, now a single floor bungalow with plenty upgrading required. I'm not sure if I'm getting things in the right order so was hoping for some guidance. We've got an uninsulated suspended floor with crawl space under the house so insulating that is high on the list. It's fairly likely we'll change heating (electric storage heater) & DHW (immersion) system in time but until we've insulated I've no idea what our heating needs might be. If we did end up going ASHP next year would it be simple enough to remove and refit the insulation as needed? Would that favour mineral wool insulation over boards? Also appears that the cavity wall is uninsulated. Under the house is well ventilated but we're not on mains drainage. Should this be a concern? Cavity wall insulation seems to be a topic with polar opposite opinions concerning damp. Our last place had no issues but I can't help wondering why the previous owner didn't get it done. The other priority is new windows - any benifits to doing this before or after cavity wall insulation? Any pointers appreciated.

Thanks @Wil that's useful to know. I'll eventually go HA but haven't got the time to setup at the moment.

I read through a blog that mentioned enabling mqqt would disable the cloud integration but also reduce the data available via the app so I guess if you're not using HA or similar then seems to indicate a cloud dependancy. I'd be happy to try it out and report back but looking at this I've no idea what the clip(s) attach to in this setup. 🤔

Spot on. Thanks Peter.

I'm looking for a cheap whole house power consumption monitor for eco 7 meter. I'm just after something simple I can scrape the data from that'll give me usage (daily or hourly) and saves me from manual reads. I keep finding products that are no longer manufactured. Any recommends appreciated ? Thanks

Thanks for the tips. @ConorWe were planning on insulating first but I wasn't sure on the order of things. Without knowing what heating system we might want to use is there a chance we'd have to redo underfloor or loft insulation or am I just over thinking things ? @JohnMo Windows are double but some of the panels are blown. I think the windows are original so ~35 y/o . Sounds like triple would be a worthwhile investment to commit to early on. Might help with this winters heating bill. It is old storage heaters so will add getting them cleaned out the list. Been a bit remiss in not reading up on the Passiv as I figured a leaky bungalow that we don't plan to rip apart isn't going to get anywhere near to those standards but as you point out, there will be a lot to learn from principles. Might help me wrap my head around u values and r values. @SteamyTea Measuring temps - sounds like a automation project. Room by room and outdoor or just inside and out? The property is on economy 7 so hopefully there is an easy way to scrape the usage data . It would be good to build up the data over time and measure improvements.

Hello. We're about to move to an 80s built 2 bed detached bungalow which needs bit of a reburb. I'm a software engineer with no real diy skills so I'm in here taking advantage of all community experience while wondering what I have got myself in to. Probably going to be a long slow refurb but we're not planning on moving again so plenty of time on our side even. 1st up I'll be looking into reducing heat requirements (suspended floor has zero insulation, doors and windows might need some attention) and trying to get my head around suitable heating systems when there's no mains gas. Hopefully after a few years we can tackle refitting the delightful baby blue bathroom with matching sunken bath and bidet.