tthermal performance

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	When we bought the house it was almost completely uninsulated - basic loft insulation, but nothing in the wall cavities or under the floors, draughts everywhere, and poorly fitting uPVC windows. The first priority was cavity wall insulation which was done with the aid of a grant from the Energy Saving Trust - this made a huge immediate improvement. We hope to be able to rely on heat from renewable sources (solar thermal, biomass - a log burner with back boiler), so it is critical that we insulate the envelope of the building as effectively as possible. Our starting point was that the house needed an average of over 100 kWh per day through the year to maintain living temperatures and we wanted to reduce this by something like two thirds, to a level where the solar thermal would provide most of our heating needs as well as domestic hot water. The target is to reduce the kWh daily average to around 35 of which on average 20 would be provided by the solar thermal system. We found the GreenSpec website to be an invaluable source of information for green refurbishment ideas and techniques The actions to achieve this include: -   triple glazed timber framed windows and doors from GreenSteps -   100mm of Ecotherm insulation under all ground floors -   Black Mountain sheepswool insulation in roof spaces -   insulated timber weatherboard cladding to first floor elevations -   thorough draughtproofing and insulation of all pipework Click the thumbnails below for larger images.

new triple glazing	underfloor insulation	insulated weatherboarding