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Author Topic: Renovating 1948 terrace  (Read 3134 times)
pdf27
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« on: July 04, 2010, 09:44:43 PM »

I've just put in an offer on a 1948 mid-terrace, and am starting to think about ways to improve the energy-efficiency (although due to the crazy way it's being sold I won't know if I've got it for at least 6 weeks!).

Ideas so far are:
- Underfloor insulation, currently has suspended wood floors with no insulation.
- Replace gas boiler, current one looks like it came out of the Ark.
- Replace hot water cylinder (similar vintage) with a new one with a solar coil, possibly pressurised.
- Remove 2 x gas room heaters and block up wall vents.
- Fit small (<5kW) wood burning stove plumbed into an external air supply. This would be as much for comfort/psychological reasons as energy saving.
- Internal solid wall insulation, it appears that some or all of the walls are solid brick although an application was made to Building Control relating to cavity wall insulation some years back. Either way they are very thin and the cavity won't be doing much. I'm inclined towards something like Spacetherm to prevent the house feeling too small.
- New windows, the current ones are double glazed but really showing their age.
- Make use of part of the large garden to grow food in.
- Fit an East/West solar thermal system to the roof.

Budget is about £20k with the possibility of more later on, and needs to include a new kitchen, bathroom and downstairs loo fairly early on. What I'm trying to work out now are the priorities. At the moment I **think** I can comfortably get everything done except the windows, solar panels, wood stove and solid wall insulation within budget. does this sound reasonable both in price and priority terms, and if so what should I aim to do next? I'm unlikely to be in this house for more than 5-10 years, so at least half an eye should be kept on the effect when it comes to sell again.
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Rooster
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« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2010, 10:19:30 PM »

I'd suggest insulate and draughtproof (guess that includes windows) as a priority along with safety (open flued gas boiler?).

No good efficiently and renew-ably making the heat only to throw it away through no insulation and draughts!!



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Roy
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« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2010, 10:45:15 PM »

Do the underfloor first/early because you really won't be bothered after you've settled too much stuff in - having to move _everything_ out to get all the boards up is a major pain. And it has to come before kitchens at least. And in a draughty house it makes a big difference. It's very cheap, just a pain to get at.

Wall insulation (and airtightness) is extremely cost-effective too. And if you can do this early then you can size boilers and the like for the new, warm, low-energy house. In fact if you are fitting a woodburner and solar then you may find (like us) that the money spent on the boiler was pretty-much a waste as it never gets used (4 days last year - any old boiler will do at those usage levels).

Don't worry too much about needing spacetherm. Everyone worries about their rooms getting smaller, but trust me, you really won't be able to tell the difference afterwards. We put 40mm phenolic on the walls in previous (small, starter) house and it made no detectable difference to room size. We're putting 100mm on the walls in this (bigger) house and you still can't tell. Especially as you only need to do the 2 outside walls (maybe plus rear extension?). 2 systems to consider. PU/phenolic foam or Kingspan's rather nifty XPS battens plus dritherm. Latter has advantage of vapour-breathability if you are worried about damp external walls. Former is better U for thickness.

Loft insulation isn't in your list. Very cheap, make it insanely deep. At least 300mm.

Keep airtightness in mind the whole time - once you get to a reasonable insulation standard it becomes the largest heat-loss source. You need to detail things carefully as you go along, working out how say the UFI will connect to the IWI.

As you say the expensive part of this is windows. Good windows cost serious money. Think very hard about triple-glazing. The extra premium is rapidly reducing and windows are the worst U in the place by a large margin, _even_ if you get triples. Make sure the windows are fitted in an airtight manner. Window fitters understand _nothing_ about airtightness, and most have the wind whistling round the outside of the frame. Existing 10-15yr-old plastic DG is about U 2.3 to 2.0. Best current wooden DG is ~1.4. So you can spend a lot of money there for limited improvement. Probably rather less than properly blocking up all the drafts. Triple windows can get you down to 1.1 or even 0.7/0.8 but it gets _very_ expensive down there.

You can fit solar thermal to an existing DHW tank chite cheaply and easily with either a retro-coil or a PHE. We did that here as an interim measure before getting now tank. It's actually very good and isn't going to get upgraded for a while at this rate. The tank can then be upgraded whever you feel like it/have the money/it springs a leak. If changing the boiler then you need to decide the final system type (thermalstore/heat bank/vented cyclinder/unvented cyclinder) before going shopping because not all boilers match all setups (essentially vented/unvented choice). But you don't have to change it all at once.

If it was me I'd do something like: (and some guestimated DIY-cost figures - very ballpark)
1) loft insulation          £200
2) underfloor insulation   £300
3) gas heaters-> WBS    £700-£2000
4=) Airtightness              £100
4=) internal wall insulation (will take a while)  £600
4=) solar thermal            £700-£1000
(kitchen/bathroom/loo not before here - IWS and UFI has to happen first)
5) garden                      £100
6) boiler                        £700-£1200
7) tank                         £300-£1800
Cool windows                   £2000-£4000

Although if boiler is old enough to have a pilot light that may push it up the list (6kWh/day for the pilot is normal).

Hope that helps somewhat
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Wookey
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« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2010, 11:38:35 PM »

Loft insulation is already at least 250mm according to the energy performance certificate, hence ignoring that on the list. Doesn't really require money or builders either, so can sort of ignore it at this stage. Might improve it later if/when we get rid of the water feed tanks in the roof.

Planning to fit a soil pipe under the floor anyway (fitting a cloakroom in a small empty room at the front of the house, to replace the current one in a lean-to at the back) so the floorboards will be coming up - at which point it's a no brainer to fit underfloor insulation. I'm renting a house at the moment anyway, so the disruption is no big deal.

What's the price difference between Spacetherm and PU/phenolic? It isn't the biggest house in the world so putting big things on the wall is enough to make me mildly nervous...

Any suggestions on how to go about detailing for airtightness? I've got some ideas already (e.g. filling up the holes in the walls on the ground floor that are there to provide ventilation for gas fired room heaters, celotex underfloor boards) but I'm a mechanical engineer not a builder by profession so rather hazy about all the leak paths beyond the obvious.

Current hot water tank is tiny and right in the way, so keeping it probably isn't a good option. Boiler almost certainly has a pilot light from looking at it, plus it's in a very poor location (huge airing cupboard which if removed allows the bathroom to double in size!) so it's on the list to go very early on.

Windows are pencilled in for a year or so down the line, largely due to cost but also so they can be done over the summer for weathertightness - if I get this place the early refit stuff will be over the winter!

Wood stove as the main heating option probably isn't a good idea for my lifestyle - there will be big chunks of time when I'll just want the house to tick over automatically (I'll potentially be needing to work 6 or 7 day weeks at some points) at which point hauling wood around isn't going to be popular. Good point on downsizing the boiler size though...
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dhaslam
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« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2010, 12:30:34 AM »

A terraced house doesn't have that much outside wall, specially since all the windows have to be on two sides.  Is there a possibility of doing external insulation on whichever side is nearest to north facing?   Windows on that side should get priority for improvement as well.     

It is worth putting a bit of thought into the garden.    I have made a  sheltered area, surrounded by windbreak material   and set up six raised beds to be rotated and a few others  fixed for fruit bushes etc.  All of the ground between the beds is covered  with ground cover fabric and gravel.   The  space is in the sunniest part of the garden and the greenhouse is in the centre  to get maximum winter sun.     
       
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pdf27
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« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2010, 07:21:00 AM »

House is almost exactly East-West facing, and given that every other house on the estate still has the original brickwork showing (it's quite nicely done actually) I'd be very reluctant to fit external insulation.

Garden is more or less under control, as it's something I have a fair bit of experience with from a few years ago. Plan is for the vegetable bit to be at the far back of the garden, separated from the house by a hedge of cordon-trained apple and pear trees. It'll take a while to get the soil in good condition, but worth it.
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« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2010, 10:55:49 AM »

Mine is very similar although downstairs was 1850's upstairs 1920's I insulated the upstairs north walls, made my own boards. Also pulling the window revels off and getting some pu foam in there is also another area i think we made the biggest difference.

Stuart
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8kw woodburner, Big piles of wood, 20 tube solar panel, custom tanks, back up gas boiler, North walls internally insulated
1968 landy that runs on anything and a currently wild meadow garden.

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« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2010, 11:33:32 PM »

aerogel (spacetherm(TM)) is about twice as much as phenolic/PU aka PIR/PUR. Good stuff if you don't mind spending the money. Has the advantage of breathability as well as thinness.

For airtightness this is good: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Publication-Download/?p=1&pid=275

Try reading the green building forum and AECB forums for more good info. You need to learn to think about airtightness and vapourtightness separately. Just work out how to make the airtighness layer continuous, bearing in mind that masonry isn't. Wet plaster can be. And it's no good having two airtight layers that don't join up (think of two buckets inside each, other both with one hole in).
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Wookey
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« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2010, 11:29:56 AM »

If the house was built in 48 then if should have cavity walls. Here is a site that should allow you to identify whether you do have a cavity http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Home-improvements-and-products/Home-insulation-glazing/Cavity-wall-insulation/How-do-I-identify-whether-I-have-cavity-walls

If the wall has got a cavity and this has been filled it should surely be identified as part of the sale process. Cavity wall insulation is likely ot halve heat loss through the external walls, be dirt cheap to do and a lot less disruptive than internal insulation.

Hope all goes well with the sale process.

Patrick
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Patrick

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pdf27
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« Reply #9 on: July 06, 2010, 07:11:03 PM »

At least some of the walls appear to be approximately 150mm thick, so if they do have a cavity it's a thin one with minimal insulation value.. The HIP records an application to building control to have cavity walls filled, and the EPC states that it has a mix of cavity and solid walls. Either way I'm figuring if the walls are as thin as they appear to be I'll need additional insulation somewhere down the line.

Thanks for the AECB tip wookey, wasn't aware of them - I've been lurking at Green Building Forum for a while though.
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Quakered
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« Reply #10 on: July 07, 2010, 11:31:10 AM »

I am no builder but how does a 1948 house end up with walls that are only 6 inches deep? A standard brick is 9x4.5x3 inches.
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Patrick

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« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2010, 01:38:51 PM »

if its a dividing wall between 2 properties, it may be one brick thick with a cement render to act as a fire wall?

tony
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KenB
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« Reply #12 on: July 07, 2010, 02:13:50 PM »

Pdf,

Traditionally there were 3 wall types using standard imperial dimensioned bricks. A standard brick can (and will) vary by as much as 1/4" in dimension - so nominally 9" x 4" x 3".

1.  Solid 9".   Two skins of brickwork consisting of lengthways "stretcher" bricks, with the skins tied together by "header" bricks laid across both inner and outer skin.   It was 9" thick - because that is the length of a standard housebrick.  It might be rendered or pebble dashed on the outer face, and plastered on the inner face.  This will add 1" (25mm) to the overall thickness. As a standard brick is 4" wide, there will only be 1" gap between the skins.

2. 11"  Cavity.  Two skins laid with a nominal 2 - 3" cavity.  Used for external walls since about 1920.  About 300mm thick

3.  Single skin  - 4" brickwork with about 1/2" of plaster either side.  Used for internal and partition walls. These may end up about 6" (150mm) thick depending on the thickness of plaster.

I should check the thickness of the outer walls. Anything close to 12" (finished) and it will be a cavity wall.


Ken

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wookey
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« Reply #13 on: July 07, 2010, 09:22:23 PM »

There is such a thing as a 9" cavity wall. Our 1933 house had them. Brick outer skin, cinder block inner skin. Blocks being only 70mm thick so room for a ~40mm cavity. Took us a while to realise.

Ken I think your 1920 date is a little early. My understanding is that cavity walls didn't become comon under the mid-to-late 1930s, although there are of course plenty of exceptions either side of that date.
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Wookey
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« Reply #14 on: July 07, 2010, 09:28:52 PM »

I suspect I've got my dimensions wrong here then - it's been a while since I actually went there so 225mm is entirely possible. It's actually unclear what the wall type is from the bond - at first it looks like stretcher bond, then you notice the odd end-on brick here and there. I'll try to cycle out and get a photo later on in the week. I do know that at least part of the inner wall (in the Kitchen) is brick rather than block, as painted bricks are visible behind some of the cabinets.

Either way I'm going to get a full structural survey done once they let me know that they've actually accepted my offer and it doesn't look like the other bidder is coming back right away - that'll tell me for sure.
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