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88 comments on Green Cottage: eco-renovation of a 100-year-old Victorian end-terrace
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88 comments on Green Cottage: eco-renovation of a 100-year-old Victorian end-terrace
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I've never heard of anyone building an extra internal wall for insulation, it seems a bit extream. If insulation is needed its added to the outside of the building but as the original poster said its expensive (for what it is).
In the UK out of a total generating capacity of around 75GW around 25GW is due to go out of commission by around 2015.
It takes years to build nuclear or coal, and the relatively intermittent wind power is supposed to be built off-shore, won't be ready by 2015 or even 2020, costs at least twice as much as nuclear power and still needs a lot of back up.
The governments plans, in so far as it has any, are to import gas which is not likely to be available and will cost a huge amount - and besides which we still have to build the stations.
Power cuts are inevitable and gas is also likely to be in short supply.
Under the circumstances extra internal walls sound like rather a good idea, even though many British homes are quite small and it would take another chunk out of the room inside, that will be the least of our worries.
As an experienced bricky I've never seen it done.
Its actualy more difficult than just reducing the internal room size and has more to do with damp building up within the cavity.
I have seen an extra skin of brickwork go up on the outside of existing buildings though. I would think that this is even more expensive than gluing the insulation to the outside wall and skimming it with render which is far more common.
I just read yesterday about the UKs upcomming energy problem. Arnt there several other European countries about to hit the same wall with decommisoning nuclear power plants and nothing to replace them?
I don;'t really know all the ins and outs - no-one would have considered doing it until recently.
Here is the stuff I was looking at:
http://www.celotex.co.uk/
Celotex Insulation | High Performance Thermal Insulation Boards
Or:
http://www.lafargeplasterboard.co.uk/products/concepts/thermal1.htm
Lafarge Plasterboard - Thermalcheck boards
Some of the versions have some stuff to keep the damp back.
My place has insulated cavity walls - any idea if that helps with the damp?
I did not really go into the full picture of how bad things are likely to be - we are also perhaps unlikely to get full gas supplies - at the moment we are running a £50 billion current account deficit and a 3.5% budget deficit - the last recession we went into it running a 2% surplus and still ended up way in deficit.
That was without peak oil.
Things here are going to get really hairy in my opinion, with no heating or light for long periods.
I don't know as much about the situation of other European countries, obviously.
However, in a brief run-down Holland and Germany both have a housing stock which uses around three times less energy than ours, as they are properly insulated.
Germany is trying to close it's nuclear plant, but will probably have to change its mind.
I don't know how the schedule there is for plant retiring.
France is running about a 2% budget deficit.
They have 59 nuclear reactors which produce 80% of their electricity, are vigorously installing wind, are planning to install 5 million solar thermal water heaters, and are installing 50,000 air heat pumps a year.
They also have substantial wood resources, and many in the country can use that for heating.
For transport they are rapidly installing urban light rail.
Scandinavia is also well placed.
Southern Europe has poor finances, and will likely in a recession not be able to stay in the Euro.
Spain and Greece are heavily dependent on the tourist industry, and with cheap flights on the way out, to go with the housing slump and their awful finances, are arguably in a worse position than Britain.
In summary, Britain is ill-placed to weather the storm, much worse than it's nearest neighbours.
Dave,
Can I gently encourage you to use paragraphs? They really do help with organizing what you read. Without them, one can get lost as to when a point is done.
Cheers
Thanks for the reminder - I was dredging so deep to try to remember the little I know about the obsolescence rates of German col plants and so on that I forgot! ;-)
OK I checked out those two sites and think this might be a good idea. I couldnt find any prices but its possible to internaly insulate 1 room at a time this way and therfore not break your budget. I would definatly start with the living room.
A standard British cavity, for buildings 20 years old will have been insulated. Old building possibly not but as long as the cavity is sealed well you wont have problems. If you have problems you would already see the damp on your internal walls. I only ever worked on one job in South London where the walls were constructed for thermal efficiency. They were 200mm thick compared to the standard 60mm.
I'm living in Holland myself but dont have a good grasp of the language yet so its difficult to follow whats happening. I know that recently they began a big project up in Amsterdam to double glaze thousands of council homes.
My personal situation is not so good. I live on a houseboat constructed entirely of wood except the metal hull. An average wall is 30mm wood/60mm insulation/20mm wood. The roofs are flat and of the same thickness and all the windows are single panes. My propane gas bill for heating was astronomical this last winter even with an efficient wood burner in the living room. My only advantage is I can collect a lot of free wood from along the canal. I guess this year I'm going to need a lot more :/
Unless your boat is very large, I doubt it will apply to your situation, but for those boats which have generator I am wondering whether a heat pump is a possible solution?
Certainly on land a body of water is the ideal heat source for a system - can anyone make some sense of this idea?
That would depend on how you went about it. Some variation on this idea (Not new, apparently, but this is the only version I've actually seen plans and final products for. I've seen references to "envelope" design as early as the '70's.) should be effective. I am planning to incorporate some version of this in a home if I build one.
http://www.enertia.com/Science/HowItWorks/tabid/68/Default.aspx
Cheers