-crashd Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Hi all! New user here so go easy We're in the process of buying this place : https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/116214602#/?channel=RES_BUY It's currently a 3 bed semi-detached bungalow, in West London. Our plan is to convert the loft, extend to the rear (removing the wall between kitchen+living in the process), do some interior modernisation where relevant (remove chimney stack / insulate floor / insulate exterior / new windows / skim / paint / new floor). We're also considering ASHP and UFH. We're in contact with a local builder as well as a few other firms for quotes on the majority of the work, but I'm finding it all a bit overwhelming! This is our first (and hopefully our last!) ever property project. Does anyone have any tips for what they'd do / techniques they'd use (particularly for insulation under the floor / exterior / AHSP related) or just some moral support for coping with the stress of it all 🤣 Look forward to being part of the community! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceverge Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 welcome welcome. Have you priced a knock and rebuild? It'll be very expensive/difficult to achieve a good standard of insulation and airtightness on a remodel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-crashd Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 @Iceverge we haven't considered rebuilding it, no. our budget is currently in the £140k realm and we were hoping to be able to work with the existing fabric. Would your recommendation be "start all over again"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Why are you thinking of ASHP if there’s gas in the street then just use that with a modern boiler. That house will be as leaky as hell when it comes to airtightness, just improve the insulation levels, better windows, properly fitted. £140,000 will just about get what you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-crashd Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 @Russell griffiths we're keen to reduce carbon usage, we can apply for a £5k grant come April and are planning to stay in this house for the long-term and I can only assume gas prices are going to rise. Obviously if everyone tells us to stay away from ASHP given the existing fabric then we may reconsider. Are we on a hiding to nothing trying to refurb the house though? That's one of the things keeping me awake at night at the moment! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Hi @-crashd The full EPC says that the building has solid external walls and suspended floors with no insulation to both. As a basic, it's worth considering all the AIM APE elements at this stage, before making decisions. That is Airtightness, Insulation, Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery, and Air Source Heat Pump, Photovoltaics and Electric Vehicle. You may not consider all of these, but when talking about saving energy on heating the first three make good long term choices. However as @Nickfromwales pointed out the AIM works will only be successful if applied to the whole building ( not just to an extension for example) Some of these will not work properly without the others: A MVHR will not work properly without good Airtightness. An Air Source Heat Pump will have to compensate for the lack of Airtightness and Insulation to the degree that the benefits become questionable, especially during winter, without them. Some work very well with others: The first 3 together make an impressive difference! An ASHP uses electricity and Photovoltaics can supply a little during winter and a lot during summer when cooling can be a problem and an ASHP can supply cooling. PV can supply a little to an Electric Vehicle during winter and plenty during summer if your vehicle is at home during sunny days. So if finances cause you to have to consider only a few in my humble opinion AIM first and go APE later. I think you can sensibly work on airtightness, insulation, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery on the existing building to great benefit. We insulated our suspended timber floor to our bungalow successfully. We extended ours to 100m2 floor but with no upstairs. We have timber frame with block work exterior. We have gone past AIM and gone to the APE stage. Our ASHP uses about 10kWh of electricity a day (Including any from PV) at the moment for all our heating and hot water. Now we are starting to see the hot water heated via the PV during the day. The actual truth about ASHP is that installed in an inefficient way, in a poorly insulated building with poor airtightness, trickle vents, open fires, extractor fans no MVHR and so on, it is a poor choice. If the entire system is sized big enough to take all this into consideration it WILL heat up the building but the running costs would shock you. An ASHP is promoted by its efficency: The Co-efficient of performance (COP) is an expression of the efficiency of a heat pump. Not by how much it costs to run or by how suitable your property is for an ASHP or how efficiently a full system installed in a property works. Because of the different experiences of people with ASHPs there are many views. Ours is, we love it. I wish you luck. Marvin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-crashd Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 Thanks @Marvin for your time, that's a really thorough answer : ) We're definitely looking to insulate the floor, the existing exterior and replace all the existing windows. If this work is done to a high enough standard, and the new work is also up to the more modern high standards, is there any other areas we need to be concerned about relating to the A and I of your AIM metric? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceverge Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 It's a tricky one. The interior has been renovated but it looks like no thermal upgrades took place. Is the house was £400k and you had £340k to spend I'd say it was an easy decision. Knock and rebuild. However we are where we are as the saying goes. The budget of £140k might be tight to both get what you want and do a really descent thermal upgrade. The importance of this is a bit lost on almost everyone involved in housing as the whole thing seems to be based on the merry-go-round of instagramable interiors, road presence and X more bedrooms to flip it on at a higher price. The truth is that a small comfortable economical to run house will be much more pleasurable to live in than a slightly bigger one that is drafty and impossible to heat and cool. You need to pick your battles. I would get a really sound strategy on insulation airtightness and mechanical ventilation. Then extend the house only with these in mind to what you can afford. Given a free hand I would extend the eaves to allow a 200mm + external insulation layer right down to the foundations. Install a French drain. New 3g windows set in the insulation layer. 300mm+ of attic insulation. Joining the wall insulation. Install mechanical ventilation of some sort. Pump EPS beads into the suspended floor void. (Installers won't be willing to this at their risk) Then for heating I'd use the existing gas boiler or a centrally places A2A heat pump and an ESHP for DHW. The loft conversion might be out of reach at this level of improvement but the extension would tie in nicely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplysimon Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 the house 10 doors down seems to have a nice extension to the rear but may be out of your budget, lift the floor dig out insulate and ufh an option? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-crashd Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 2 minutes ago, Simplysimon said: the house 10 doors down seems to have a nice extension to the rear but may be out of your budget, lift the floor dig out insulate and ufh an option? The wonders of Rightmove That one is really nice, but our family / work situation means we'll likely need an office/spare room (hence the loft conversion idea). It's within budget, but we definitely wouldn't have the 70k+ for a loft. And they don't appear to have EWI, so perhaps there's IWI? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Hi @-crashd Remember to decide if you are going the MVHR route to not install trickle vents in the windows. Our main air leakage was at the wall floor join. Seal around the inside and outside of anything going through the external walls BEFORE covering with insulation or plaster or anything. I cannot speak about budgets as I did all the work myself. Good luck M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-crashd Posted March 9, 2022 Author Share Posted March 9, 2022 17 hours ago, Marvin said: Hi @-crashd Remember to decide if you are going the MVHR route to not install trickle vents in the windows. Our main air leakage was at the wall floor join. Seal around the inside and outside of anything going through the external walls BEFORE covering with insulation or plaster or anything. I cannot speak about budgets as I did all the work myself. Good luck M Really useful advice, thanks @Marvin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 And anything going through the floor. The amount of soil stacks I have seen with a big hole through the floor and the wind blowing through..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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