1950s renovation

[Simonjoy]

Hi everyone. Nothing too exciting here. Recently bought a 1950s ex-council house and aiming to lower energy consumption as far as reasonably practicable. Found your excellent website just before a self-building friend recommended it, too, and will probably lurk and read a lot and ask a few questions. Thanks in advance for all the great advice. 

[SteamyTea]

Welcome.

First things first, do you know how much energy you currently use, in kWh.

If you can split it up into space heating, water heating, cooking and general electrical usage, even better.

Do you also know the construction types of the house?

And your local weather regime.

[Simonjoy]

Haha! Good questions. We've not moved in yet so we don't know about energy use. We'll move in in the summer and looking to do some work before then. Course, that means some decisions will either need to be delayed, or based on obvious gains (if there are such things!). There's currently an LPG combi boiler for hot water and heating (no mains gas), plus electricity for other services. 

 

It's a brick-built terraced house, with cavity walls at both ends which are currently not insulated. So we plan to get that done. There is also one solid wall, which runs down one side at ground floor level – that's the "side entry" passageway that runs through the terrace, giving access to the back garden. This wall is *really* cold, but not damp and not exposed to sun or rain because it's covered by the upper storey. The fairly narrow passageway means it can't be insulated outside so I'm thinking IWI, but also thinking that might wait until we've been in a while. Internally, that wall is mostly hallway so we can't have too much extra bulk on the wall. 

 

The house has a fully south-facing roof with no shade (on the edge of a village) so seems a gimme for solar of some sort. 

 

Good question about the weather. It's SW England (Somerset), so generally warm and wet. But I will see what more detail I can find. No flood risk, though, according the the Environment Agency (and neighbours). 

 

Thanks for getting back to me. 

[SteamyTea]

52 minutes ago, Simonjoy said:

I'm thinking IWI, but also thinking that might wait until we've been in a while

Do it before you move in.

 

54 minutes ago, Simonjoy said:

The house has a fully south-facing roof with no shade (on the edge of a village) so seems a gimme for solar of some sort. 

Get that done, especially if you need to reroof, integrated PV looks better and costs the same.

 

56 minutes ago, Simonjoy said:

It's a brick-built terraced house, with cavity walls at both ends which are currently not insulated

A cavity wall is really a main wall, with the outer as a rainscreen.  So be careful about filling it up.  They were not really designed with thermal performance in mind.

 

 

 

[Simonjoy]

Ok. Thanks. That's helpful. 

 

On IWI, because we have restricted space, I was thinking it might be worth pausing to make some kind of assessment about how much to try and squeeze in – like, do we need as much as physically possible, or could we get away with a bit less. There's one doorway that will be a fiddle to fit around. Otoh, doing it before we move would obvs save a lot of nuisance. 

 

On solar, would that recommendation be PV only or some thermal too? I've had some mixed advice on this (just from friends who have done one or the other). 

 

I'll check out the cavity thing. Neighbours have it already so they'll be able to tell me if they had problems. What would the alternative be? More IWI? I'm not sure the deed covenants (or whatever they're called) would let us do EWI – the local authority who used to own the property set restrictions on what cold be done externally. 

[SteamyTea]

22 minutes ago, Simonjoy said:

On solar, would that recommendation be PV only or some thermal too

Solar Thermal is a one trick pony.  Once your cylinder is full, it just sits there, close to boiling, waiting to go wrong.

PV can be diverted to just about anything electrical, mostly without you knowing why it run at a tiny bit above grid voltage).  PV does not need maintenance once fitted.

 

You may find that you can EWI the rear of the building, councils only seemed concerned about what others see.  One advantage of IWI is that you can improve airtightness much easier.  Old houses are full of holes and leak heat out dreadfully.

[Simonjoy]

Ok. Thanks.

 

I'll keep reading!