BACKGROUND
This young family own a beautiful house in the countryside just outside of Brighton. They had been living in the house for a couple of years only to discover that the house was unbearably cold in the winter time in the solid walled front of the house but better in the newer rear extension which had cavity walls but no insulation. The major issues were to maintain the loft storage while upping the insulation, updating the heating system and reducing draughts.
Period/Age of House: 1930s
No. Bedrooms: 3
No. other rooms: 4
No. of floors: 2
Floor Area: 125m2
Cost: Refurbishment £30,000
Wall type: Cavity Wall/Solid Wall mixed
DETAILS
The large loft provided a fantastic opportunity to increase the loft insulation – however like many people the client wished to retain the storage space. So we insulated with 270mm of Knauf Earthwool (recycled glass bottles) and added a favourite product of ours called Storefloor by Loftzone U value: 0.16W/m2K
The next most pressing part of the job was to insulated the front wall of the cottage that is solid masonry and built pre-war. Here we added 60mm of insulated plasterboard to the internal leaf. This improves the thermal efficiency tremendously. In areas where this sort of thickness could not be accomodated (around windows etc.) we use another product that has an extraordinary insulating effect (our secret!) U value: 0.30W/m2K
We also added Ecobead cavity wall insulation to the rear cavity walls of the house – this made the house a true hybrid of different systems of insulation – making the project interesting and challenging and reducing the thermal conductivity by 2/3rds for this 50mm cavity. U value: 0.56W/m2K
Also we removed the old sliding doors in the kitchen that were 15 years old aluminium double glazed with new factory finished timber double glazed argon filled french doors U value: 1.3W/m2K
Phase II of the project (a couple of years later) saw us return to make the small and dated kitchen with a side storage area into a large family space with a new bespoke kitchen. We did this by removing a wall and rebuilding the side of the house with an insulated block work wall, new Velux lights and a properly insulated roof & floor. The final touch being relaying the whole patio at the rear.
HEATING AND HOT WATER
The LPG boiler that was 15 years old was replaced with a high efficiency Worcester Bosch Greenstar 15RI LPG boiler (which is 91% seasonally efficient) and some alterations to their existing radiators.
DRAUGHTS
The new french doors have built in draught-proofing and we added new seals and trickle vents to all of the timber windows on the front elevation so that they did not need to be opened to allow for ventilation of the living room.
LIGHTING
Lighting throughout supplied with Low Energy GU10 LED lights.
PAINTING
Our clients are doing the internal decorations themselves but have chosen to use recycled paints for all of the house.