Improving a pre-1900 building

[SchoolOfStone]

Hello everyone,

 

Greetings from western England! We're in the middle of renovating/converting our Victorian-era building and the going has been slow while we try and get our heads round the various government grants, and the options available to us. This forum looks like a very useful resource and I'm looking forward to making use of it.

 

Regards,

 

SchoolOfStone

[NSS]

Welcome. Would I be correct in assuming the Victorian building you speak of is an ex-school?

[George]

I'm at the tail end of extending and renovating a 1880s cottage.

 

In brief:

- internal wood fibre insulation (9" lime mortar brick wall). his has made an enormous difference

- about 50 replaced bricks and limited repointing (I'm in the school of thought that only repoint what you must - else you risk doing more damage than good)

- ASHP with properly sized radiators, the extension had UFH. There was no CH before. I have the domestic RHI grant

- New kitchen, bathroom and shower room

- MVHR system installed, yet to be commissioned

- opened an old fireplace and reinstated the log burner

- uncovered old terracotta floors... still trialling how to restore them

- replaced most of the non-original internal doors

- removal of gypsum plaster and replaced with lime plaster. Some reskimming over the old plaster 

- new lead work valley between the pitched roofs (this unfortunately was mucked up for various reasons but probably has a life span of 10 years before needing attention)

- windows were replaced with upvc a while back before my time, have kept them but resealed as part of the IWI

 

Pandemic has made it quite a challenge but the end is in sight.

 

I had no luck with the green home grant but as above, the RHI is fine. 

Edited February 11, 2021 by George

[SchoolOfStone]

On 10/02/2021 at 23:36, NSS said:

Welcome. Would I be correct in assuming the Victorian building you speak of is an ex-school?

That would indeed be a correct assumption!

 

@George Our main areas of investigation at the moment are insulation and possible ASHP. However, we already have oil CH, and with oil prices as low as they are I can't see it makes a huge amount of financial sense to switch to ASHP, other than avoiding costs due to market volatility. I'll probably start a couple of threads in the relevant forums on this, though.

 

Insulation seems to be the most obvious area for us to focus efforts on at the moment. Ideally we'd like to be able to use the GHG for insulation and/or replacing single-glazed windows with double-glaszed units.

[PeterW]

Welcome ... 

 

Unless you have shares in an electricity company, forget the ASHP and keep the oil. You would have to put a significant amount of insulation and air tightness products and effort into the building to get anywhere with a heat pump. It just won’t be big enough or be able to cope. 
 

Controversially, if you want something RHI related and have the old Victorian chimney then pellet or biomass boiler may be an option. 

[George]

Heating oil is ~40p/litre in the buying group I used to use. About ~20% cheaper.

 

It's hard to make a comparison but used to spend £700/year just on heating from oil, electricity for hot water. ASHP now does hot water and heating the whole house for about £5/day at the moment (although still in the first year and last few weeks have been cold). 

 

It's not a direct comparison as we didn't have CH before, didn't used to get hot water and had to use the log burner more. But oil prices aren't that much lower and, of course, capital cost of ASHP is covered by RHI.

 

Not to mention the carbon reduction and no oil tank in the garden.

Edited February 16, 2021 by George