The UK's first Energiesprong homes

[Potemkin Villager]

Saw a front page of the Star where no snow on the roof means there is Hash in the Attic. Now there is a place where some insulation would have provided a handsome return on their investment.

I believe fuzz choppers do regular Infra Red camera scans for high profit hot spot roofs. I played with an IR camera at our local college recently and was very impressed how sensitive it was. If you rested your hand on a wooden table top just for a few seconds it could easily detect and display the residual heat left in the wood!

[careful_eugene]

https://ibb.co/eZzTex
I went to see these houses at the weekend. It's a block of 9 probably built in the 60's or 70's, if you want to see what they looked like before they are still on google streetview https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.95395 ... .82t/data=
The first thing that struck me was that 2 of the 9 haven't been modified, I assume that they are privately owned and the owners didn't or couldn't contribute to the scheme. I suspect the saleability of those 2 houses has gone down considerably. The new cladding does look good and, using the other houses as a comparison is 200mm - 300mm thick. Again, I don't know the reasons but not including the other 2 houses does seem a bit short sighted to me, even if they had just done the external stuff so that it could all have been integrated and left the inside improvements for those 2.

[woodburner]

Careful-egene, can you edit your post to put the long URL in a tagged form? It’s ok for people with big screens, but the text size is difficult to read on tablets.

in the edit window it should look like

[*url=whatever the url is*]A text label[*/url*]

Just remove the * to make it work, and put the proper url in.

[emordnilap]

We need to stop putting an economic requirement onto an environmental problem.

Therein lies a key.

That said, this Energiesprong scheme sounds horrendously expensive.

Besides, wouldn't it be better to stop the heat getting into the walls, from the heating source, in the first place? I have a large tall room fully internally insulated and it rarely needs any heating.

[kenneal - lagger]

Careful-egene, can you edit your post to put the long URL in a tagged form? It’s ok for people with big screens, but the text size is difficult to read on tablets.

in the edit window it should look like

[*url=whatever the url is*]A text label[*/url*]

Just remove the * to make it work, and put the proper url in.

I've tried to edit the post Woodburner but the URL function doesn't work in this case. I've found in the past that long URLs with lots of number don't work for some reason and this is another case. Any other Mods/computer nerds know anything about this.

[kenneal - lagger]

We need to stop putting an economic requirement onto an environmental problem.

Therein lies a key.

That said, this Energiesprong scheme sounds horrendously expensive.

Besides, wouldn't it be better to stop the heat getting into the walls, from the heating source, in the first place? I have a large tall room fully internally insulated and it rarely needs any heating.

How expensive is losing millions of acres of food growing land and hundreds of major cities to sea level rise?

Internal insulation, as you have Em, is usually less efficient and, with the numbers of houses that are required to be treated, impractical. To insulate a house fully internally would involve vacating the house as, usually the kitchen and bathroom have to be stripped to insulate behind the fittings as well as every room requiring attention to the outside walls. With an average of 650,000 houses a year to be insulated to 80% saving before 2050 in the UK providing alternative accommodation for that many people is not a practical proposition.

There is also a problem with the insulation around the floors and where internal walls are built into the outside walls. Where these building elements join there is a cold bridge formed which will reduce the effectiveness of the insulation for a considerable distance around the cold bridge. There is also a strong possibility of interstitial condensation forming in the structure and also surface condensation and mould. Also not many people are willing to lose the 200mm (8 in) of space that would be required to do the job properly. Lightweight structures tend to over heat more than heavy weight structures.

All this makes internal insulation less effective and considerably more expensive than external insulation.

[careful_eugene]

Careful-egene, can you edit your post to put the long URL in a tagged form? It’s ok for people with big screens, but the text size is difficult to read on tablets.

in the edit window it should look like

[*url=whatever the url is*]A text label[*/url*]

Just remove the * to make it work, and put the proper url in.

Apologies, I don't seem to be able to make that work, I've removed the non-link part so if you click on the remaining link it just shows you the map. Zoom in on West Street and you're there.

[emordnilap]

We need to stop putting an economic requirement onto an environmental problem.

Therein lies a key.

That said, this Energiesprong scheme sounds horrendously expensive.

Besides, wouldn't it be better to stop the heat getting into the walls, from the heating source, in the first place? I have a large tall room fully internally insulated and it rarely needs any heating.

How expensive is losing millions of acres of food growing land and hundreds of major cities to sea level rise?

I know, which is why I quoted you. Financial cost should be much further down the menu. Money can be created to pay for stuff and then taxed out & destroyed.

All this makes internal insulation less effective and considerably more expensive than external insulation.

In existing housing, you could well be right. Properly-done internal insulation may be more feasible/desirable in new builds.

[kenneal - lagger]

On a new build it's even cheaper, easier and still more efficient to insulate externally.

(Edited once to add efficient)

[vtsnowedin]

On a new build it's even cheaper, easier and still more efficient to insulate externally.

(Edited once to add efficient)

I'd have to see the data on that.
New builds on the high end here are going with a 19mm insulating board on the outside between the wall sheathing and the exterior siding with 200 mm of insulation between the studs (some have an air gap between a 138mm outer stud and a 50 to 90mm inner wall to support the giprock surface. ) Doors and window ledges have to be beveled to reach through the wall thickness as preformed door casings have yet to be adjusted to fit these new thicker wall sections.

[woodburner]

Careful-egene, can you edit your post to put the long URL in a tagged form? It’s ok for people with big screens, but the text size is difficult to read on tablets.

in the edit window it should look like

[*url=whatever the url is*]A text label[*/url*]

Just remove the * to make it work, and put the proper url in.

Apologies, I don't seem to be able to make that work, I've removed the non-link part so if you click on the remaining link it just shows you the map. Zoom in on West Street and you're there.

Thanks for the effort. (and K-L) just putting in the postcode would allow a normal search on google maps.

[woodburner]

https://ibb.co/eZzTex
I went to see these houses at the weekend. It's a block of 9 probably built in the 60's or 70's, if you want to see what they looked like before they are still on google streetview https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.95395 ... .82t/data=
The first thing that struck me was that 2 of the 9 haven't been modified, I assume that they are privately owned and the owners didn't or couldn't contribute to the scheme. I suspect the saleability of those 2 houses has gone down considerably. The new cladding does look good and, using the other houses as a comparison is 200mm - 300mm thick. Again, I don't know the reasons but not including the other 2 houses does seem a bit short sighted to me, even if they had just done the external stuff so that it could all have been integrated and left the inside improvements for those 2.

One of the troubles with outside finishes, IMO the houses looked better in the original finish. The new finish has given them much thicker bars on thje windows which takes light away, a deep recess which takes a lot of light away, an extra plastic guard to frustrate peoples final exit strategy, a rather unsightly pink/puce colour on the opening surround.

The other major problem would be policing the works. Grenfell Tower is a classic example of what organisations will try and get away with. Even if the materials are specified, large numbers of firms employing laour that is not really interested in what they are doing, other then being paid a wage, would result in the same shoddy work as it has done on other large government initiated schemes.

[BritDownUnder]

I think that cladding looks OK and I would happily have it done on my place in Australia. As long as there are no fire risks or condensation problems why not get it done?

Don't forget also that the perspex sheeting may be primarily intended to prevent young children unwittingly attempting an 'exit strategy' not adults.

[woodburner]

The cladding is probably PVC and may contain interesting substances. As probably do lots of things inside the house. The exit strategy may not be so bad an option.

[kenneal - lagger]

The houses in that block are probably Housing Association (public housing for our friends across the pond) with the untreated houses being sold. Unless the private owners agreed to join the scheme, and pay, the HA has no authority or financial incentive to do the works.

The owners of the private houses have now probably let them for rental, going on what people say about most HA sales, and they have absolutely no incentive to spend more money on the houses. The HA probably saves a fortune in unpaid rentals because the tenants couldn't previously afford their fuel bills, and the maintenance costs will probably be zero for a good number of years hence.

Judging by the age and appearance of the unimproved houses those windows probably need to be replaced and they will be replaced with uPVC, because it's cheapest, and that will result in thicker frames as well. The size of window and the probable room size means that there is plenty of light going into the rooms and internal decoration will have more effect of the light level in the room than a slight reduction in glass area.

The "plastic" guard, which is probably laminated glass, has been put there because the windows have been replaced by doors, probably to increase the ventilation area so that the increased insulation doesn't cause overheating in the summer. From the map it would seem that West Street runs east to west so these houses face south and there will be plenty of insolation from the windows and a slight increase in frame size and inset will make very little difference to light levels.

The fire risk from the cladding is unlikely to be very different from the wood cladding that has been replaced. The type of insulation could add to the fire load depending on what has been used. Overall, without knowing what the construction of the block is it is impossible to comment on the fire risk.