For some lucky Barratt buyers, the landfill underneath would provide a free source of Methane.
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While my Victorian terrace isnât great for insulation, it would be a lot better if children didnât leave their window wide open all night 
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Worst electronic music thread ever.
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That one is âpassiv hausâ (or massive house?)
And an ASHP will cost you more to run than a gas-fired boiler for now. However, gas prices will only rise and electricity will be the way to heat your home before long.
Iâll drop some low-cost solutions in here when I get time.
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Worth looking at Enocean switches.
Battery free, wireless light switches and inline relays. This means you can have several sockets and lights all connected to one or several switches without expensive re-wiring. Or worrying about replacing batteries etc.
You can therefore have a âlast man outâ switch by your doors, meaning that no non-essential circuits and lights are left on when you are out. You can also have a switch by you bed which turns the house off.
Youâd be amazed how much this will save!
Has anyone here had internal wall insulation done? I had a chap round to quote for polystyrene bead cavity filling. He said that, given the age of the house and stone facing on the front, his recommendation would be internal slabs.
I did have a cursory look at one time, Dave. Assume youâve solid walls like mine? It will reduce the internal dimensions quite noticably and itâs a big job, iirc. If youâve got any internal features like original coving, then all that comes into play too. Pain in the arse, basically.
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I didnât do it, but my cottage has internal insulation.
Old stone walls are draughty, even when theyâre three feet thick. The walls have an internal skin which consists of 3" timber and 4" Celotex insulation with plasterboard bonded to it. Works a treat but obviously reduces the size of your room(s) by nearly 8" wherever they have an external wall. The timber frame also has the added advantage of creating an additional (insulating) cavity.
Our house was built in 2010
I really expected it to be super efficient
Itâs rubbish
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I reckon internal insulation on our 9" externally-rendered Victorian brickwork might be the standard option (although I note @J_Bâs previously discussed good experience with external insulation). The thing Iâm not clear about is how it might interact with damp. The Victorians were pretty minimal when it came to a DPC and the bricks are poor quality, so even very careful silicone injection has been of limited success. I fear that a cold, poorly ventilated internal wall surface might be a good deal more damp than the expensively warmed ones we have at the moment. The question is whether this would matter, behind the insulation.
VB
Basically I am wondering whether to get the cavities filled as far as possible with PS beads. Most of the back is 1927 2-inch cavity (with a bit of solid where the boiler used to be in the kitchen), the extended side has 40mm free with 25mm PS bonded onto the inner leaf block (âStocks blocksâ).
Front is stone to half height in the 1927 bit (solid, according to the hole-driller, so they wonât like filling the rendered brick cavity section above it), with the new stone-face bit of extension being too rough and narrow in the cavity for filling, he said.
After the usual sucking through teeth he said that they could do some, but it might cause problems, and they couldnât guarantee any filling on the front, so I wouldnât get grant help for it.
âIf it was my place, I wouldnât do itâ was the summary. I think that he was also looking forward to higher insulation standards than just a 50mm cavity fill. His company donât do internal insulation, so he wasnât touting for business there.
Remove plaster, line walls with 2000g DPM, fix 50x100 mm tantalised battens, line with Tri-iso or similar, fix more 50x100 battens running in the opposite direction, plasterboard and skim. Gives equivalent u value of 300mm of rockwood.
Lol at you lot with your modern houses. I can feel the air moving when itâs super windy.
The joy of living in a 400 yr old cottage. 
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Do you ventilate behind the Tri-iso, as you would under tiles/slates ?
VB
Youâre assuming they actually built to the regs. Some poor sods on tv recently found the builder hadnât bothered with the insulation in the walls or loft⌠their heating bills were astronomical
At least lockdown keeps Jim at a reasonably safe distance, for a while anywayâŚ
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No, itâs never been specified on any of the jobs I have done.
You need to collect some straw, mix it with Patchâs output (instead of flinging it over the fence) and then apply the combination to the outer walls and roof. Bingo. Hugely improved insulation enhanced further by bluebottles come the summer. Your neighbours will be begging you to do it for them. 
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Our internal walls (also brick) are, unsurprisingly, keyed into the external ones. Iâm a bit worried that if the new 2000g DPM (which would actually make ventilating the cold air gap pointless, come to think) makes the outer walls wetter then that damp will spread along the internal walls and damage the surface finishes there.
VB