House with solid brick walls and external insulation

FreeBear

RHemmings said: I'm currently sitting in a very large master bedroom in a rented house. Even if this house has cavity wall insulation ... checks EPC ...  nope, solid brick walls with no insulation, it would be easy to put in a 10cm internal insulation layer and still have plenty of room space. The bathroom would be tricky - need to move the bath. And the hallway and stairs - I don't see how that could be done.

If the stairs run up an external wall, putting insulation in is next to impossible without moving the staircase. It is then a choice of putting up thermal wallpaper (so thin, it provides little insulation), using external wall insulation, or not bothering at all.

I have the dubious pleasure of owning a house that is cavity wall on the ground floor, and solid 9½" brick on the upper half. There is a noticeable step in the wall as you climb the stairs, or rather, there was - After stripping the plaster off, a total of 65mm of Celotex was stuck to the wall and then plastered over. Only just hits the 0.30 W/m²K target set out in the Building Regulations... Thermal improvements elsewhere in the house will offset the lack of internal/external insulation on the remainder of the wall. At the end of the day, Building Regulations allows for a degree of flexibility and recommends that you do the best you can with the budget you have.

As for the loss of floor space, even in a small room, 75-100mm is not noticeable. Perhaps in a bathroom or toilet where everthing is squeezed in tight against the walls, you might.

RHemmings

Thanks very much @FreeBear and everyone. I greatly appreciate everyone sharing their knowledge and experiences with me. Combined with other reading, I'm getting a handle on this. Which is really useful as I view tomorrow. 

After seeing more videos on external wall insulation, I recognise the foam (?) blocks used. There is a house near me that had a large number of those stacked up in their front garden a week ago when I was last there. 

From the videos, I can see that the example house I saw before with external insulation must have been unfinished, which is why it looked so strange. Certainly the YouTube videos all show the properties being finished well and the result looking good and professional. As, from photos, appears to be the house that I'm viewing. 

I wonder if there will ever come a time when I'm aware of pretty much everything I need to be aware of... Being in these forums helps a lot. 

I think there are some houses with rooms where losing 10cm would make a difference, other than bathrooms. E.g. in the (rented) house I'm in now, with a single bed in the box room there is not very much width space left. Losing 10cm width would be a fair proportion of the width left over. And, without removing some wooden square thing which I'm not sure what it is, a bed wouldn't fit lengthwise with 10cm missing as right now only a minimalist frame will fit.

FreeBear

RHemmings said: I think there are some houses with rooms where losing 10cm would make a difference, other than bathrooms. E.g. in the (rented) house I'm in now, with a single bed in the box room there is not very much width space left. Losing 10cm width would be a fair proportion of the width left over.

Not disagreeing with you... The first room I did here was the box room which is nominally 2.4m by 2.4m. Knocked the plaster off the walls (most of it actually fell off), and put 75mm of Celotex on the to exterior walls. Trust me, you would be hard pushed to notice the loss. The only real clue is the window reveal being 75mm deeper than the upstairs rooms that have yet to be insulated.

If you can't get ~75mm on the wall, do the best you can - Even just 25mm will be an improvement.

RHemmings

FreeBear said:

Not disagreeing with you... The first room I did here was the box room which is nominally 2.4m by 2.4m. Knocked the plaster off the walls (most of it actually fell off), and put 75mm of Celotex on the to exterior walls. Trust me, you would be hard pushed to notice the loss. The only real clue is the window reveal being 75mm deeper than the upstairs rooms that have yet to be insulated.

If you can't get ~75mm on the wall, do the best you can - Even just 25mm will be an improvement.

Oh, I didn't think of taking the plaster off. That would help maintain some space. 

I'm not going to be insulating the house I'm in (though I wish the landlord would). So, the box room and bathroom, and kitchen here is just a thought exercise. It's going to be another thing I watch for in viewings - is there enough space here so that I could put in internal insulation. 

FreeBear

A couple of shots of the stairwell.

There are a few details hidden from view, so if/when you are ready to undertake insulating walls, feel free to ask.

Netexporter

Do the hidden details include a vapour barrier?

FreeBear

Netexporter said:

Do the hidden details include a vapour barrier?

The aluminium foil on the insulation boards act as a vapour control barrier - Just tape the joints, job done (the boards themselves are an effective barrier on their own).

RHemmings

FreeBear said:

A couple of shots of the stairwell.

There are a few details hidden from view, so if/when you are ready to undertake insulating walls, feel free to ask.

Thanks for the photos. Very interesting to see. 

Further up this thread I mentioned a house where I believe they are going to be adding external insulation. I passed by it today. I'm going to be keeping an eye on this. Given that I saw it a week ago I thought they might have progressed a lot by today, but no. It looks about the same. 

RHemmings

I viewed the house discussed in the OP and much of this thread. It was very disappointing. There was a huge patch of visible black mould in the bathroom, and the house stank of a very strange smell. I didn't recognise it, but my (adult) son says it is the stink of mould as he has had experience of this.

There were some strange lumps on the roof at regular planned intervals and of a regular clearly designed shape that I was told were ventilation. I'd like to know what those are called so that I can learn about them. 

The insulation appeared to be about 5cm thick. There were many places where the insulation was cut away due to features of the house. E.g. a sideways on entrance lobby at the side of the house. 

Not energy related, but I cannot understand how someone took a house of that size and made upstairs rooms that simply don't work for us. We need rooms with a bed, computer desk, and storage. We've viewed a 3 bed thin terraced where the two main rooms were fine. So, I don't understand this. 

Before the viewing I was really thinking I would offer on this house. And, the energy efficient features were a major part of that. 

Spies

You could try to see if the house is on street view and when it changed appearence to see if the windows are now more inset than they were?