single brick room - always freezing

MisterBaxter

Furts wrote: »

Any homeowner should be ultra cautious about external wall insulation being fixed to their home. The Government has pulled the plug on the Green Deal and energy saving schemes because they were shocked at the cowboy operators working in the industry. The Ex Head of the BRE (IIRR) was commissioned to investigate and traveled the country looking at homes. I recall he did not find a single home insulated to a satisfactory standard. The worry is the problems this is storing up for the future.

None of this is news to those of us who work in the construction industry. It is for this reason that most of us have dismissed the findings as a statement of the bleeding obvious. Consequently I have forgotten the exact details and title the report!

It's true that there have been some very poor quality installations as a result of the significant levels of funding that had been thrown at EWI schemes, but I think it is unfair to say that EWI doesn't work and it is an oversimplification to suggest that the poor standards played any significant part in the demise of ECO or Green Deal funding. One of the other issues arising from these schemes was the overestimation of CO2 reduction and energy cost savings as funding levels were based on these.

When done properly it can work very well and I have been personally involved in delivering EWI schemes to Airey and Wates houses for a LA. The main problem is that to do the job properly on a whole house is very expensive and I think that is where some of the grant funded EWI schemes went wrong. Work is needed to the roof line, gutters, RWP, SVP, window reveals, satellite dishes and telephone cables all of which add cost but with no real insulating benefit. At the same time we did some internal thermal boarding schemes, they achieved similar levels of insulation at around a quarter of the cost but these works were much more disruptive to the tenants as every room in the house was affected.

Several new funding streams have come online recently and EWI is back on the agenda in the social housing sector but it is unlikely that the work will go to the sort of contractors that were set up to deliver previous schemes, instead they are likely to procure through larger contracting firms.

For the sort of project the OP is looking at I would still advocate internal thermal boarding as the simpler, cheaper option but EWI shouldn't be dismissed in general.

Smiley_Dan

Someone said EWI doesn't work... wat?

MisterBaxter is on the ball.

Grenage

External insulation and render would be optimal, and you may want to look at some insulation against the roof if it's flat. Internally it's easy to DIY, but the insulation board will still cost you.

You could always rip it down and start again, of course.