MikeGrahamT21

concentrate on the fine details and plan everything in advance, that way you get a whole house fabric first approach. Good Luck!

Maybe they took the average 4 years before and after?

Layering is fine, and generally a good idea. Kooltherm is the best product for getting a lower u value, and has 150kPa compressive strength, so it depends on what weight you are putting on the floor. 150kPa converts to around 15ton per m2, which would be an immense load to have on a floor. K8 their cavity product has a CS of 100kPa, so will be around 10ton per m2.

As i read this, it was most insulation improvements happen at same time as extensions, so a year down the line your annual quantity of energy has increased, but thats because although you've reduced heat loss, your floor area has increased, which is obvious really.

A cheaper alternative which will still more than do the job is HardieBacker Board (B&Q/Wickes) and also good for the tiles to stick to too and you can glue some PIR to the back of it. If you make a small frame perhaps out of 3x1 fixed to the back of the cream bit, either with screws or glue, and then screw the backboard to the same frame, intumescent silicone to fill the gap and then your tiles onto the board… if I’ve understood your project right

There are plenty of Hybrid silicone/adhesives these days which are also paintable but will stretch with the expansion/contraction. id go for one of these if I were doing that task

Id say 40mm is too much personally. How about some kind of detail before you start above DPC? Maybe slate? Terracotta? Not entirely sure what would be suitable from a compressive strength POV.

Currently no plans for changing the gas boiler which is almost brand new and still under warranty. I’ve 3 more sections of external wall insulation to complete and 1 more window to swap out for triple glazing which should do a lot of the heavy lifting.

went from 125 to 95, you forgot to take off the DHW amount. I’m now down at 48kWh/m2.a, hoping I’ll be able to half it again which would sit my heat demand in to the enerphit range, lot of work to do yet tho!!

yes you are right, I’ve always thought of it as open cell, which in board form it is, but the beads themselves are closed cell… “EPS is, in other words, composed of 2% polystyrene and 98% air. The manufacturing process results in a closed-cell structure, but not a closed-cell insulation board (due to voids that can occur between the beads).”

EPS is open cell, I suppose you could go as far as saying some gas may enter the cells, can imagine that would cause a fair explosion. https://www.houseplanninghelp.com/bens-self-build-story-laying-a-beam-and-block-floor/ found this which may offer some solutions?

One reason for the ventilation gap is to remove radon gas build up if you are in an area which suffers from this. And the other which has been mentioned is to protect from flooding, again depends on where you are located

some of the savings will be related to insulation, but one major energy saving factor of MVHR is how dry the property becomes, which makes heating it a lot less difficult. at this time I had 62m2 of heated floor space.

it’s very hard to pin an exact value as I made other improvements in the same year. at the point of installing the unit and setting it running, my yearly annual quantity of gas for the prior year was 8752kWh, of which around 800-1000 is for water heating, no other gas appliances. Almost exactly a year later my yearly total stood at 6938kWh, however some of that drop will be attributed to insulating 2 rooms floors. Hopefully it’ll give a rough idea. Since then I’ve done more work (as you’ll see in my blog entries) on insulation and air tightness and my yearly gas amount now stands at 4314kWh

Short answer is yes, definitely worth it. My bungalow had a fair few holes in it when I first put MVHR in, as I was still in the process of doing each room and got fed up of seeing the box, and it made a huge difference even with the leaks, much dryer house and my energy usage has dropped year on year for that and beyond whilst I’ve done more work each year. For me it’s still the best thing I’ve done for this property

A good elastic expanding foam (Illbruck FM330 is ideal) and then filler to finish

Few more up to date photos, 18 bags of plaster later. Aside from installing the blind, fireplace and TV on the wall where all the sockets and aerial point is, i won't be doing any more this year, drying the plaster out became a huge problem, i ended up sat around for hours while the basecoat pulled in, and moisture was getting in places id rather it not be, like the loft. Pretty much all dried out now after the cold dry weather arrived and had dehumidifier on to top up the MVHR's effort.

They do look like they've had a lot of weather and a nice covering of lichen, very hard to match to. Nearest i've got: https://www.salvoweb.com/33167-reclaimed-cambridge-yellow-bricks https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155202679090 https://www.salvoweb.com/29315-256-multistocks-ps250 https://www.salvoweb.com/24067-reclaimed-yellow-imperial-bricks http://www.lazdan.co.uk/reclaimed-bricks/ I'd say you're going to be looking at reclaimed for anywhere close. Hope this helps.

What is the height of the brick? These days you can get 65mm or 73mm, theres also 68mm but they are not as common. Are you sure these are brick and not brick sized stone?

Better to be safe than sorry in my mind

I'll hazard a guess that this has been skimmed over artex. Depending how old the property is, regardless of asbestos survey already done, a small sample of this will need testing, they wouldn't have been able to test what they can't see

https://shop.vitcas.com/vitcas-fireplace-construction-board.html?gclid=CjwKCAiAv9ucBhBXEiwA6N8nYHH31OuU6Kkh_bRx6ATlp7wwSQ81fzygmzTxvQmZEyEfWGpNjLnkoRoC5wEQAvD_BwE Something along these lines is what you need around a fire, doesn't matter if it does or doesn't get used then Or as suggested above, Vermiculite High Density Boards.

Wow i've not seen that much condensation in a loft for a very long time. I would imaging a lot of it will have dripped down onto your insulation, making matters even worse. If you have a window vac, might be a good idea to suck as much of that water up as possible. Check extractor fan connections, this is a common issue as has been said. There are also other options which you could look into, increase ventilation into the loft, some breathable membrane is better than others at releasing moisture, a couple of vent tiles wouldn't go a miss in yours. Bathroom will clearly be a major source of moisture, its highly unlikely you'll have a vapour membrane above the bathroom ceiling, you could remove the insulation and paint the back of the plasterboards with a liquid vapour membrane, something like black jack DPC may well work, just slowing down the rate moisture can escape through the plasterboard into the loft. Make sure there are no gaps from bathroom to loft, where light fittings are, if your extractor goes into loft etc. Any there, seal them up with good quality silicone. Rafters without doubt need treating with anti fungal.

yeah as above, flexible tile adhesive will be fine.

As long as they are in decent condition, they will be saleable. Roof tiles are in a shortage at the moment with very long lead times. I used reclaimed tiles on my recent extension. There are reclamation yards who deal in roof tiles too, they may well purchase at a reduced price and collect them from you, worth a phone call if you have no luck selling privately.