Blog

Energy Performance Assessment

Robert — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 22:05:27 +0000

With all the "eco" elements of the refurbishment having been completed, we recently got a revised energy performance assessment done. The surveyor was very impressed with the house, and said they couldn't think of anything else we could have done to it.

And the result is...

External Wall Insulation - finished result

Robert — Tue, 06 May 2014 19:45:43 +0000

Here's the finished result:

Rendering of External Wall Insulation

Robert — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 10:27:57 +0000

A quick update: the EWI has now been rendered, here's what it looks like:

External Wall Insulation

Robert — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 17:43:20 +0000

The last couple of weeks have been spent mostly on the rear external wall insulation.

First of all, the panels (which are 180mm thick) are bolted onto the wall, being cut to size around windows and doors etc (it's not easy to get good pictures unfortunately, because of the scaffolding):

Rainwater harvesting tank

Robert — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 22:59:10 +0000

After a break from the 'eco' aspects of the project, this week we completed the installation of the rainwater harvesting tank. It stores 3000 litres of water and measures 2.5m x 2.5m, sitting in a hole 1m deep:

Challenges of air-tightness sealing

Robert — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 18:37:36 +0000

It's turning out to be very difficult to keep up the air-tightness, now that we've got various other trades involved. As well as the Proclima air-tightness tapes that you've seen in previous posts, sealing of cracks and around pipes etc is done with Orcon F (not sure what the F stands for), a green-coloured sealant that's applied using the same type of gun+nozzle as you would apply eg bathroom sealants.

Turning the heating on

Robert — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 22:49:36 +0000

Today we got the boiler fired up, and the heating running on the first and second floors. There's still more to do on the plumbing, but it felt like a major milestone to actually heat the place up! I intend to give it a longer run tomorrow to see how the building envelope performs in terms of heat retention.

New builders

Robert — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 22:51:46 +0000

The blog has been quiet these past two weeks, partly because we've been in a state of limbo with the builders. They stopped work two weeks ago and although initially seemed to want to negotiate amicably, it's now become clear that they aren't going to come back. So we've got some new people working on finishing the job off: today we had two joiners, two plumbers and a brickie on-site, and tomorrow the two joiners and an electrician.

A non-eco update

Robert — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 18:53:15 +0000

Since the last blog post, some things have been happening at the house, but of a non-eco variety. Most of last week the plasterers were in, and we've now got all but one of the rooms skimmed. Today, Roy the cornice man was doing some repair work to the cornices...

Beginning external wall insulation

Robert — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 19:13:36 +0000

The builders have now started fitting UdiReco to the external rear wall of the house:

Note that the right-hand wall (with the bricked-up window) has deliberately been left, as the insulation is on the inside there. The job is waiting for scaffolding now.

The dilemma of building site waste

Robert — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 23:58:54 +0000

Here you're looking at offcuts of Spacetherm which, cumulatively, are equivalent to one full sheet:

Not only does this represent £450 worth of material, the manufacture and transport of it to site is a contribution to the embodied energy of the refurb.

Progress with internal wall insulating #3

Robert — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 17:44:04 +0000

I'm back on-site now. The last of the Udireco internal wall insulation went up today:

But generally speaking, progress on-site has been slowing down - not speeding up. Now that the road is open again and given how behind schedule we're running, some serious words are going to have to be had with the builders...

This week's progress

Robert — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 10:59:08 +0000

The builders have been doing general making good and plasterboarding work, in preparation for the plasterers coming in and putting the skim coat on the remaining rooms...United Utilities have now opened the stretch of road in front of our house...

Progress with internal wall insulating #2

Robert — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 18:06:26 +0000

The builders started putting up the UdiReco in the ground floor hallway and progressed up to the first floor bathroom. Here's a photo of where it was up to as of Friday...

Progress with internal wall insulating

Robert — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 19:02:18 +0000

The Spacetherming of the front elevation is now complete...