home insulation - insulating paint?

loreleicat

Help needed. We are lucky enough to live in a relatively large detached Victorian house but the pennies are tight now. The first winter we moved in, a bowl of water in our front room froze. We have done all the usual over the last 10 years - double glazing, new back and front doors, hardboarded and carpeted the floor, new radiators, loft insulation but still the place is just really hard to keep warm. One of the main problems is that being a double fronted house almost all the rooms have two outside walls - my sons' rooms in particular get the worst of the weather on their walls.....the ceilings are also high giving a larger room volume. Being a Victorian house, there are no wall cavities, and I am loathe to board the walls and loose space. I have heard about insulating paint but I can only find it on US websites - does anyone know about this or have any ideas - the US website goes on about major heating savings, and being developped from Nasa technology - seems too good to be true if I have heard nothing about it in the UK. Help!

Nile

Hello loreleicat


Welcome to the MSE site.:wave:

gooismeid

hello loreleicat, our house sounds v similar to yours and insulating paint (indoor or outdoor?) sounds intriguing, but I'm afraid I've never heard of it. I do have a suggestion based on our own experience though - do you have a cellar? Ours was the cause of many upward draughts because there was an airbrick every 18 inches or so in the cellar walls - way too many than were actually needed. We blocked up half of them and this has made quite a difference to the warmth, and the cellar isn't damp either. Just a thought for you.

alanobrien

A practical solution is to line the walls with polystyrene.
All the DIY sheds sell rolls of the stuff to go under wallpaper.
its about 3 mm thick.

We did this in one room of our old place that suffered from condensation. It helps to keep the inner walls warm to the touch. Worked well for us at least.

calmgirl

heat is lost by the following ways in buildings

Conduction (solid to solid) ie putting your hand on a cold window and the window will draw the heat away

Convection (heat loss becuse it rises).

You have done the loft double glazing etc. And you say you have new rads. are they under the windows as this is the most inefficent way to heat a house as 40-50% of the heat goes through the glass.

THe air gap in cavity walls traps the air and it gets heated by the sun outside and heating inside.

wind will also draw the heat out of a house if the outside walls are damp as it accelaerates the evaporation process (just like licking your hand and blowing on it where its wet gets colder quicker). Try planting shrubs trees etc to break up the wind.

There is a double glazing firm based in winsor that specalises in victorian and listing houses. it uses box sash wondows and very modern technology to construct its wooden windows and gaurntees them for about 50-60 years.They are called somrhting like

The orginal box sash window comp


Alsso have you considerd a complimantry false celing trap the air and stop it from rising.

as for insulating paint i can only guess it has a polymore base to it as plastic does not transfer heat well

also many victorian houses have a very thin slate roof with no backing to it consider that spray stuff you can use

all modern heat saving proceses only help by 10-15% if its that cold still im afraid ti will stay that way unless you compleatly overhall the pace

GreenNotM

Do you still use the fireplaces ? having a fire in these will heat the walls - not very efficient - but seems wood pellets are an efficient/eco source.

These people have set up a system to move the warm air downwards in their property and have other interesting ideas http://www.theyellowhouse.org.uk/

Have you plenty of high vegitation to protect the house from the prevailing winds - houses suffer from wind chill too - leylandi are quick growing but best to plant something slower growing beyond so you can cut the leylandi down eventually and have a nice native species hedge...

sorry not aware of the paint tho - but black will abosrb heat and give it out - white will reflect..

gromituk

calmgirl wrote:

And you say you have new rads. are they under the windows as this is the most inefficent way to heat a house as 40-50% of the heat goes through the glass.

Can you please provide a reference for this? The reason why radiators are put under windows is to counter the down-draught from the cold window surfaces - they do lose more heat per unit area than walls - but this figure seems greatly exaggerated to me.

gromituk

As to the original question, insulating paint sounds like snake oil to me - in other words, a myth. You will have to bite the bullet and insulate your walls. You need only lose about 6cm from each, if you use foam-backed plasterboard. The foam used is about twice as effective per unit thickness as polystyrene or mineral wool. It's quite a major operation unfortunately, because of sorting out window and door reveals, moving radiators, etc. I am doing it round my house slowly. One room is now nice and warm when before it was next to uninhabitable in the winter.

gromituk

calmgirl wrote:

also many victorian houses have a very thin slate roof with no backing to it consider that spray stuff you can use

Not a good idea. Roofs do not provide any insulation anyway: it is the insulation in the loft which does the work. Lofts need to be ventilated to prevent mildew and worse. Spraying stuff under the slates merely masks leaks and encourages rot. Loft conversions utilise insulation with an air gap above it.

calmgirl

gromituk wrote:

Can you please provide a reference for this? The reason why radiators are put under windows is to counter the down-draught from the cold window surfaces - they do lose more heat per unit area than walls - but this figure seems greatly exaggerated to me.

I know the reason behind the idea of putting rads under the window and Its one of those ones that never really have any figures for. All i know is that our next door neighbour lives in an identical house to us all their rads are under windows, ours are on the walls and they pay much more for their gas than we do. (both have 3 kids) we also cook with ours they have electric cooker. they are about to do major renvovations and will be putting new rads on walls.

calmgirl

gromituk wrote:

Not a good idea. Roofs do not provide any insulation anyway: it is the insulation in the loft which does the work. Lofts need to be ventilated to prevent mildew and worse. Spraying stuff under the slates merely masks leaks and encourages rot. Loft conversions utilise insulation with an air gap above it.

Thanks for that info wont bother with mine being done will stick to the hard way cavity gap etc