The importance of good design

waqasahmed

JSHarris said:

I tried to improve the performance of our old house, with only limited success.  The insulation was fairly easy to improve, as were the doors and windows (they needed replacing anyway).  Airtightness was a very difficult thing to improve I found.  I made up a Heath Robinson contraption, using an old car radiator fan, fitted to a bit of board.  I taped this into a window and wired the fan up to a 12V power supply and variable speed controller.  This allowed me to suck air out of the house and go around looking for air infiltration.

The shock to me was just how much air/draughts was coming in from places I didn't expect.  All the double glazed door and window seals leaked to some degree, but the worst airleaks were tiny cracks between the ceiling and walls, plus air leaks around all the light switches and sockets.  Air was leaking from the loft down into the house in dozens of places.  With hindsight I should have realised this, as there always seemed to be spider's webs and woodlice behind outlets and switches.  The only way they could have got there was by crawling in from the loft space.

This is fair. I intend on sealing up my lights too. I want spotlights but only if it's properly sealed 

MarzipanCrumble

tbh most of GB housing stock is old.  If new I suspect not particularly well built in terms of passivhous.

How does the normal householder tackle issues which make their houses EPC D or E?  I have looked at newer EPC certs which say installing solar heating of water will cost approx 4k with a return of £50ish per year.  Well, right!

I am a householder who has the money to improve my house, yet I am reluctant because of the cowboys I know are out there.  Would you recommend a paasivhaus architect?  House = 1927-8 build, coal dust motar.

waqasahmed

MarzipanCrumble said:

tbh most of GB housing stock is old.  If new I suspect not particularly well built in terms of passivhous.

How does the normal householder tackle issues which make their houses EPC D or E?  I have looked at newer EPC certs which say installing solar heating of water will cost approx 4k with a return of £50ish per year.  Well, right!

I am a householder who has the money to improve my house, yet I am reluctant because of the cowboys I know are out there.  Would you recommend a paasivhaus architect?  House = 1927-8 build, coal dust motar.

I think more people are looking at PassivHaus requirements purely because of the events circa 2020 tbf.

Some people have made even older houses more efficient tbf. You need builders that truly know PassivHaus too tbf

I wouldn't bother with solar thermal. Solar PVs are far better imo 

silverwhistle

waqasahmed said:

I wouldn't bother with solar thermal. Solar PVs are far better imo 

That's what most of us on here have done if we have a HW tank.. Tank full this morning, had lunch and now charging the car on PV.

My terrace house is a pretty efficient housing form and my bills low, only 1200-1400 kWh gas a year and the main heating load taken by a wood burning stove. My next step major step may be an A2A heat pump although in the interim may put a single room MHRV (or whatever order it is!) unit in the bathroom as part of an upgrade.

In heatwaves I find the front N facing lounge comfortable (or under my apple trees) but one thing I do is to cover the outside of the S facing dining room window with insulating foil. Effective if not decorative, and inside I can't see it as I also draw the blinds.

An awning would be almost as helpful, so that's another upgrade I'm considering. To be honest I can't imagine running the A2A for cooling too much, but in any case have plenty of surplus PV. Living in Italy (Rome and the Alps) I never had AC, but the use of external shutters informed my foil idea.

waqasahmed

silverwhistle said:

waqasahmed said:

I wouldn't bother with solar thermal. Solar PVs are far better imo 

That's what most of us on here have done if we have a HW tank.. Tank full this morning, had lunch and now charging the car on PV.

My terrace house is a pretty efficient housing form and my bills low, only 1200-1400 kWh gas a year and the main heating load taken by a wood burning stove. My next step major step may be an A2A heat pump although in the interim may put a single room MHRV (or whatever order it is!) unit in the bathroom as part of an upgrade.

In heatwaves I find the front N facing lounge comfortable (or under my apple trees) but one thing I do is to cover the outside of the S facing dining room window with insulating foil. Effective if not decorative, and inside I can't see it as I also draw the blinds.

An awning would be almost as helpful, so that's another upgrade I'm considering. To be honest I can't imagine running the A2A for cooling too much, but in any case have plenty of surplus PV. Living in Italy (Rome and the Alps) I never had AC, but the use of external shutters informed my foil idea.

I've already paid for solar panels on my flat roof though I was looking to get insulation on top of there too. The specific insulation I want on top is another £10K

So I was like "Ah well I know it'll cost me more to get insulation after solar panels are already on there but I don't have that £10K currently so I'd rather just get solar panels, get savings that way, and then I'll hopefully have more available for further insulation. I'm aware it'll probably cost me more too because it'd mean moving the solar panels too "

I don't intend to bother with a heat pump until I've got the house super insulated, and with triple glazed windows / decent doors + an MVHR 

In the grand scheme of things, if I pop an ASHP in now, my energy requirements are the same (Though obviously not literally given heat pumps have a COP of 2.8 on average) If I make a conscience effort to reduce how much I'm using now, it's better. 

In that sense, a heat pump is something I'll probably end up doing when boilers are banned. That's not because I don't want a heat pump. It's because I figure that it's far better to do the other stuff first 

Besides, solar panels on top of a flat roof isn't insulation per se but stops the attic getting super warm in summer because the sun is hitting the solar panels on top of the roof, instead of the roof itself

I'll also consider home assistant and get some blinds that automatically go up/down depending on sunset / sunrise. That too should help keep heating requirements down if you can get it from the sun.

Ditto for individual heating controls. That should keep my heating requirements down too. I require far less heating if I have individual controls ie: when wfh I don't need to heat the entire house. You can also get solar panels on awnings too fwiw

silverwhistle

I'm not sure triple glazing would help me too much, but I'm with you on the general principles. I'll be doing incremental changes until my gas boiler goes sigh... Hopefully that will be after heat pumps get more mainstream and before there is a mad scamble to get one fitted..

waqasahmed

silverwhistle said:

I'm not sure triple glazing would help me too much, but I'm with you on the general principles. I'll be doing incremental changes until my gas boiler goes sigh... Hopefully that will be after heat pumps get more mainstream and before there is a mad scamble to get one fitted..

I've got a feeling that the gas boiler ban will be pushed back 15-20 years. I have no concrete proof of this but this is what tends to happen with government pledges regardless of what government is in, and even what kind of political system you have

This being said when I says I'll put a heat pump in when boilers are banned, I mean probably before 2035 when they're meant to be banned (for now at least)

Also consider the angle on which an installer installs windows at too. If they angle them correctly, they face south. It looks kinda weird but also kinda cool imo. Like this person. I really like those windows. It looks really quirky 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=s5y6xp-HGMc&t=22s

Martyn1981

silverwhistle said:

I'm not sure triple glazing would help me too much, but I'm with you on the general principles. I'll be doing incremental changes until my gas boiler goes sigh... Hopefully that will be after heat pumps get more mainstream and before there is a mad scamble to get one fitted..

Hi. Also worth considering the direction windows face, and how much solar gain you get from them for heating your house.

For north facing windows, triple glazing will help reduce annual heating needs, but for south facing it might be better to go with double glazing, as they will let more solar gain into the property, for a net gain v's triple glazing.

But triple has an added benefit, of extra soundproofing, if living near a noisy road. So no simple rule over what to choose.

waqasahmed

Martyn1981 said:

silverwhistle said:

I'm not sure triple glazing would help me too much, but I'm with you on the general principles. I'll be doing incremental changes until my gas boiler goes sigh... Hopefully that will be after heat pumps get more mainstream and before there is a mad scamble to get one fitted..

Hi. Also worth considering the direction windows face, and how much solar gain you get from them for heating your house.

For north facing windows, triple glazing will help reduce annual heating needs, but for south facing it might be better to go with double glazing, as they will let more solar gain into the property, for a net gain v's triple glazing.

But triple has an added benefit, of extra soundproofing, if living near a noisy road. So no simple rule over what to choose.

I think for me because my house is east / west facing, it makes sense to have them forcibly face south

Noise reduction didn't bother me because I live not far from horses 

The green building store say that the PassivHaus windows they have only cost 20% more than the non PH ones

markin

Martyn1981 said:

silverwhistle said:

I'm not sure triple glazing would help me too much, but I'm with you on the general principles. I'll be doing incremental changes until my gas boiler goes sigh... Hopefully that will be after heat pumps get more mainstream and before there is a mad scamble to get one fitted..

Hi. Also worth considering the direction windows face, and how much solar gain you get from them for heating your house.

For north facing windows, triple glazing will help reduce annual heating needs, but for south facing it might be better to go with double glazing, as they will let more solar gain into the property, for a net gain v's triple glazing.

But triple has an added benefit, of extra soundproofing, if living near a noisy road. So no simple rule over what to choose.

Standard triple glazing can be worse for sound than DG, Soundproofing glass has be be designed with different thicknesses and films.