Jump to content

Why insulate


Russell griffiths

Recommended Posts

7 hours ago, Onoff said:

Here's another reason to insulate. For me outside "work" at home stops when the weather is like this. If I had a decent, insulated workshop and garage I could get in with other stuff, mad little projects etc.

 

Btw, anyone want plans for a snowmobile? A vintage design with ply body but easily brought up to date with a GRP shell.  (Quite serious). Things like that I could be doing in a WARM workshop!

 

Much as i love a warm workshop (and indeed built one prior to moving, doh!) may concentrating on the house is best? 

 

Unless you can live the garage? Something my wife suggested, whem a crude calculation suggested it was 5 times more thermally efficent than the house!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Garage as part of the house has meant it was pretty easy to include it in the insulated envelope. The downside is the door as budget won’t run to a fully insulated door so it will get retrofitted with some PIR and possibly an aluminium inner skin. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Garage as part of the house has meant it was pretty easy to include it in the insulated envelope. The downside is the door as budget won’t run to a fully insulated door so it will get retrofitted with some PIR and possibly an aluminium inner skin. 

 

The Yanks seem keen on building South facing doors as solar warm air heaters in their own right. Clear plastic front face. Thin slit at the base, air gets drawn up over a black painted fly screen mesh backed by foil faced PIR. Exit duct at the top rear. Small pc fan optional driven by a small PV panel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are these cheap as chips, eBay laser pointer / IR thermometers any good for pinpointing cold spots around doors and windows? You can buy similar in Screwfix (Titan brand) for £35):

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Infrared-Handheld-Temperature-Gun-Thermometer-Non-Contact-IR-Laser-Point/332426284743?epid=1756017825&hash=item4d66268ec7:g:tZEAAOSwyGZZ8ZGh

Edited by Onoff
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Are these cheap as chips, eBay laser pointer / IR thermometers any good for pinpointing cold spots around doors and windows? You can buy similar in Screwfix (Titan brand) for £35):

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Infrared-Handheld-Temperature-Gun-Thermometer-Non-Contact-IR-Laser-Point/332426284743?epid=1756017825&hash=item4d66268ec7:g:tZEAAOSwyGZZ8ZGh

 

 

Yes, most of them are fine.  I have a similar one, bought from ebay a few years ago, and it works pretty accurately, at least as accurate in terms of measuring heat from surfaces as the thermal imaging camera I have.

 

Like all these types of device, it will be calibrated for a surface with an emissivity of around 0.9, so if you point it at a surface with a substantially different emissivity it will give an incorrect reading.  There is a handy list of surface emissivities here that may help give an idea as to what surfaces may give errors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity#Emissivities_of_common_surfaces

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

Yes, most of them are fine.  I have a similar one, bought from ebay a few years ago, and it works pretty accurately, at least as accurate in terms of measuring heat from surfaces as the thermal imaging camera I have.

 

Like all these types of device, it will be calibrated for a surface with an emissivity of around 0.9, so if you point it at a surface with a substantially different emissivity it will give an incorrect reading.  There is a handy list of surface emissivities here that may help give an idea as to what surfaces may give errors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity#Emissivities_of_common_surfaces

 

Thanks, useful link, I shall order one. In the photo above of the old patio doors I'm pretty sure I can feel a strong draft up where the frame meets the wood trim / meets the (lilac?) painted woodchip over hardboard wall. It might be that the doors were just fitted in a ragged hole. A liberal application of gun foam around the edges might help...If I could get in there. The door & frame is white painted / powder coated aluminium so I guess an emissivity of 0.9?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our first house was a bit crap like yours seems to be mr @Onoff and we used to get out of the bath and get into bed, the curtains used to flutter in the draft from the single glazed windows. 

 

I think the only way to tackle it is head on, smash bang wallop. 

Move bedrooms downstairs, and completely gut upstairs

ceilings down 

window trims all off

floors up

strip all walls 

strip out the dormers

a complete gut. 

 

Then rewire 

re plumb

re insulate

 

 

re board

flooring back

decorate. 

 

Then move back upstairs making a temp living room in a bedroom,and a small kitchenette 

go downstairs and gut that same as upstairs rip it all out 

you cant take any prisoners get in and smash it out

i think if you go about this half a room at a time patching this and that I think you will struggle to get on top of it. 

 

Only my point of view obviously, please feel free to ignore everything I say or tell me to get knotted. 

 

As a side view it looks like you have a nice big garden and a rear access. 

Anychance of getting consent for a new build there. 

How about a little granny annex. 

Build the new one, move into that while you refurb the big one, then move back in and your left with a nice little rental at the bottom of the garden. 

Any chance. 

We have consent for a two bay garage with granny annex above went through planning without a blink of an eye. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Russell griffiths said:

Our first house was a bit crap like yours seems to be mr @Onoff and we used to get out of the bath and get into bed, the curtains used to flutter in the draft from the single glazed windows. 

 

I think the only way to tackle it is head on, smash bang wallop. 

Move bedrooms downstairs, and completely gut upstairs

ceilings down 

window trims all off

floors up

strip all walls 

strip out the dormers

a complete gut. 

 

Then rewire 

re plumb

re insulate

 

 

re board

flooring back

decorate. 

 

Then move back upstairs making a temp living room in a bedroom,and a small kitchenette 

go downstairs and gut that same as upstairs rip it all out 

you cant take any prisoners get in and smash it out

i think if you go about this half a room at a time patching this and that I think you will struggle to get on top of it. 

 

Only my point of view obviously, please feel free to ignore everything I say or tell me to get knotted. 

 

As a side view it looks like you have a nice big garden and a rear access. 

Anychance of getting consent for a new build there. 

How about a little granny annex. 

Build the new one, move into that while you refurb the big one, then move back in and your left with a nice little rental at the bottom of the garden. 

Any chance. 

We have consent for a two bay garage with granny annex above went through planning without a blink of an eye. 

 

I couldn't agree with you more! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Come on then,

you supply the beer I’ll bring me hammer, once we rip it all out there’s no turning back

im really good at making a mess and then running away???‍♂️

 

DIY SOS meets BuildHub......

 

wonder if @Nickfromwales is really Nick Knowles in disguise .....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why insulate?

 

What man wouldn't want to come home to his missus in her dressing gown....

 

Just NOT over her normal clothes! :)

 

A sweltering 11.3 in the lounge. I'm now safely ensconced in my furry blanket. Thinsulate hat and fleece on with a Lemsip and cup of tea watching Money For Nothing.

 

Probably won't move until March...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Onoff said:

Why insulate?

 

What man wouldn't want to come home to his missus in her dressing gown....

 

Just NOT over her normal clothes! :)

 

A sweltering 11.3 in the lounge. I'm now safely ensconced in my furry blanket. Thinsulate hat and fleece on with a Lemsip and cup of tea watching Money For Nothing.

 

Probably won't move until March...

-1 and I’m working outside in shorts ; what’s wrong with you people ! Man or mouse ? 

 

 

A056F7C2-A980-47DC-827C-BABCB925F9C4.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Onoff said:

Why insulate?

 

What man wouldn't want to come home to his missus in her dressing gown....

 

Just NOT over her normal clothes! :)

 

A sweltering 11.3 in the lounge. I'm now safely ensconced in my furry blanket. Thinsulate hat and fleece on with a Lemsip and cup of tea watching Money For Nothing.

 

Probably won't move until March...

 

I think i would be getting out the squirty foam pronto!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are in the process of carrying stuff into the new house (which is next door to our old one) because we are vacating the old one next week. I thought that the temperature in the new house was dropping a bit and I put it down to the fact that we were constantly opening doors to walk furniture and other  contents in.   So in the end I checked and the slab had definitely dropped a couple of degrees in temperature.  What was going on?

 

It was then that I realised that I have made a boo-boo and the heating hadn't been on for over 2 days!!

 

Well insulated houses stay warm for a long time without being heated.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh how I wish we could have an accurate weather forecast.

 

Yesterday it got to +1 degrees and the ice started melting, first time above 0 for a week . I swept as much snow and ice as I could off the drive but by 4pm it was frozen again.

 

Last nights forecast was for -1.  I thought it felt chilly this morning, and yes, it was another -11 night.

 

Inside the new house, with no heating it has slowly dropped to 6 degrees.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @ProDave, our house doesnt have heating yet and its temp tends to vary around 5 to 7 deg depending on outside temp.  We've had some low temps here in the midlands although only for a few nights  - shorter than you've had.  I'm happy to work in those temps but not sure I'd get the missus to live there at those temps.  You are lucky.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know the heating requirements of the house. 2KW of heat input would have it comfortably warm. I used SJHarris's heat loss spreadsheet to work out the theoretical heat loss and did a test for a few weeks with a constant low heat input and verified the temperature it maintained matched the prediction.  It's only cold now as there is no heating on as for a few weeks work has halted and it would just be a waste of electricity. It took quite a while to cool down to where it is at now, it's barely been above 0 for a week now and several nights down to -10

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Pretty sure @PeterStarck told me through their build they just occasionally had a 2kW heater going in the winter. 

 

But seriously you passiv types are missing a trick:

 

http://www.c60design.co.uk/news/many-cats-take-heat-passive-house/

 

Interesting foot note on the use of iguanas for cooling...

 

:ph34r:

 

Have we not done cats?

 

Anyhoo, my cat popped its clogs at 18 and three quarters recently and is now either pushing up asparagus or in pussy heaven tormenting Schrodinger.

 

Can anyone lend me 64 iguanas?

Edited by Ferdinand
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Have we not done cats?

 

Anyhoo, my cat popped its clogs at 18 and three quarters recently and is now either pushing up asparagus or in pussy heaven tormenting Schrodinger.

 

Can anyone lend me 64 iguanas?

 

Vague memory of 15 cats...

 

But reptiles is a new one! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Onoff said:

Pretty sure @PeterStarck told me through their build they just occasionally had a 2kW heater going in the winter. 

 

That's right but it tends not to get extremely cold here being around only two miles from the coast. It did once get down to -9C at night many years ago but this winter we've only had one night below freezing when it was -1C.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, PeterStarck said:

That's right but it tends not to get extremely cold here being around only two miles from the coast. It did once get down to -9C at night many years ago but this winter we've only had one night below freezing when it was -1C.

 

Lets face it there's not much going to get through the meticulously applied 400 odd mm of lcynene in your walls! :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...