RedMango

Hello all, started to remove/open up the chimney breast in this 1930s house for a hob top. Breast is 1545mm wide Lintel is 1200mm wide The ends of the lintel sit on 150mm of brick This is the first time so unsure on a few things; 1. The brick work inside the chimney is only sporadically tied into the front wall with bricks going side ways. Do I need to support the inside section with anything or is it another being tied into the front facing wall? 2. Most annoyingly the brick pictured on the right hand side has come loose and the brick below hasn't broken off cleanly so I'm concerned the overall support for the lintel is no longer enough? How could I rectify this? Any other points you notice please let me know. Many thanks

Thanks, I think EWI is a no go currently. I've decided to go for oversized radiators working off a delta T of 25. so should be easily enough for a ASHP or running a combi if i go that route.

Now i've done some proper heat loss calcs the rooms are between 500 and 900w

As sure as I can be without looking myself. But both reports have come back saying it is and the searches found the council had an application for cavity wall insulation to be fitted on the property. I'll of course double check once I've got the keys but the previous owner from what I gather was a bit of a builder/DIY enthusiast so makes sense he had it added back when there was the big push by the gov to get home cavity's insulated

Update: Hi all thanks for the input. So house is due to complete soon and waiting to hear back from a survey in the next week before exchange. I have found out though that the house is a lot more insulated that previous thought. It has/will have triple glazing, insulated cavity walls, insulated suspended timber floor, insulated roof. I still haven't decided between getting a ASHP or Combi but I'm doing lost of heat loss calcs and getting averages so ill come back with more precise numbers but a ball park is between 900 - 1400w per room. As my 1st job on the list when moving in is to take up the floor for rewire, insulate and plump. Do I install UFH or Radiator pipe work?

Thanks. Any particular reason for the air con? We have windows open regularly? I'm definitely going to size the rads and pipe work ready for a ashp but I'm just not ready to take that leap. I'll just run a combi at a low temp and when it breaks replace it with one. I'm not sure I'm doing the heat loss calcs right. Used 5 or so online and all give me between 5.5k BTU to 8k BTU (just working off the living room ATM till I can grasp the calculations etc. If I'm to work of a delta of 30 instead of 50 then it's about double so I'd need a output of around 15k BTUs ?? 😂 Or am I missing something

Yes I definitely will, I've started now from the info I have then finish it off when I can get into the property to take proper measurements etc

This is exactly what I'm planning apart from the floors will be half PIR and half Wool and I don't have the funds for EWI yet but its the next stage. I'm not au fait with the abbreviations sorry, what are A2A & ESHP?

Sorry no chance, In all my reading and reviews i've not seen one non biased good thing to say about ASHP in the enviroment/situation im in. Maybe in 10 years time ill reconsider

To be honest that sounds exactly like i was planning on doing. Minus the resizing of the window openeings as i didnt know about that but most have rotted away so they've probably resized themselves. We will be throwing at least 50k into the house maybe more down the line as we plan on keeping it for 30+ years after which ill kids will have it. But i do get your point that its partly wasted. I think after doing more reading im going to stick with radiators i think most are right in saying i will never get the house efficent enough to benifit from UFH.

Im hoping a £2k boiler can last me till 2032 then i'll consider it.🤣

I wont be using ah eat pump though, just a standard boiler

So the general consensus is radiator are better than Ufh in this situation? Not going to lie that goes against everything I've read but I guess most my research has been on Ufh Vs radiators and not been specific to the house type. I'm not to worried about the budget I just wanted it to be as energy efficient as possible and allow me to not pay a stupid amount for gas on 10 years time.

I can go more or less as there's about 100k needing to be spent but 30k is what I have to buy from day 1. Why do you say radiators? I'm not against the idea of that but I just presumed UFH was more efficient especially as in 10+ years we are all apparently going to be running heat pumps 🤔

Yes I can't imagine I will want to go the infill route, I agree with you Nick that it would make it easier to keep warm however, as it's only going to be me doing the work, budget and tbh I'm not sure my heating requirements warrant the effort involved. Our current house has more heat loss that this one will and we get by with very minimal heating. Dave, I to am eager to see the floor construction. I'm going to presume the joists run the length of the rooms (averagely 3-4m) maybe with one or two sleep wall in the middle for support. From the research I think I've decided (if I can) 18mm Engineered Wood Vapor barrier? Maybe? Joists-25mm screed with 16mm UFH 75mm PIR or the maximum the joists allow If the joists are a lot thinner then I'll probably max the insulation then build the UFH above it on top of the floorboards or a chipboard subfloor. Then screed and engineered wood. The 1st floor I'm going hopefully do the same screed but if it's not strong enough then I'll go for the PIR boards with UHF cutouts. With wood flooring laid on top