How to insulate an Edwardian House properly

[RoseAddict]

We have a drafty Edwardian end of terrace which is hard to heat. We tend to rely heavily on a log burner which we love but the more we read about it the more we realise we must make some changes and use it less. Last year we tried using the central heating more but we can’t really afford it, the house never gets very warm without the log burner on and this year the gas situation is frankly terrifying.

The loft is insulated a bit with that awful glass fibre stuff. There’s about 10cm in there with boards over it and loads of stuff I’m storing for a family member.

We have an original front door which we have worked on draft proofing but os basically still very drafty.

We have double glazing which is ok- last year we replaced the worst offending windows that were very badly fitting and didn’t close properly.

The wall on the detached side gets very cold. The cupboard under the stairs blows a gale in to the hall.

We are trying to think where to start. We don’t have loads of money to spare but could borrow if it were really going to make a difference.

We need to replace the downstairs floors, should we do underfloor insulation? Should we insist family member takes back the stuff from the loft and then triple the insulation up there? Should we look into external wall insulation (probably too ££ and problematic but we want to look at all options).

We could spend a couple of K right off or save up or borrow to do a bigger job if we really feel it’s worth doing.

We are not in a conservation area so have a reasonable amount of freedom wrt external insulation etc. House is currently pebbledashed so to take that off and insulate the outside wouldn’t be as sacrilegious as if we had pristine red bricks.

Or we could move! Would rather not move though

Santander does a free home energy report that its mortgage customers can use to help work out what to do - perhaps other banks do something similar?

www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/loans-and-mortgages/energyfact

You can get an enhanced Energy performance certificate we’ve had a couple done on work houses and used ‘cosy homes’ they give you more of a breakdown and on the options you can do to improve energy and heating efficiency of your home. There’s other companies they do a similar thing.

I would be surprised if there isn’t a greener homes grant announced by the government soon.

Energy efficiency gets over complicated at times.

Insulation is just cutting material to size and using tape. It's putting a jumper on bits of the house to trap the warm air. It's fiddly and time consuming but not difficult to do, if you have more time than money. There's plenty of youtube videos. You can buy the materials from Screwfix or wherever.

Draughtproofing is more valuable than people think especially in older homes. Again, really basic stuff, you can diy it. Be curious about joins and edges internal and external. Shove insulation or putty in wherever you see a gap.

In older houses the multitude of small gaps can add up to a large total area, equivalent to leaving the front door open 24/7. So well worth doing ahead of the more expensive interventions.

Good luck OP!

I've only skimmed the thread so sorry if it's been covered before @RoseAddict
Insulation in your loft makes a massive difference you should have 250-300mm depth depending on the type of insulation and definitely insulate the loft hatch.
Under floor insulation- if you have a crawl space you can insulate without taking up the floorboards, you just need to cut hatches for access. Insulation batts should match the width of the joists and should be squeezed into fit and the secured with strapping underneath most people use rock wool but we used sheepswool as it was nicer to work with. If not you can do it from above but will need to take the boards up.
Draught-proofing is a must - hunt down gaps in boards, walls, skirting, round windows etc and seal (also stops mice and other little visitors that older houses often have)
If you don't put a porch on your house, a door curtain which you draw at night / very cold days can be very effective.
I can highly recommend getting an original door rehung and then draught proof. We did ours mainly because it's over a metre wide so was going to be very very expensive to replace whatever we did. It's great and it's a beautiful door.
It sounds like the house needs controlled ventilation addressing as well as insulation - this is incredibly important whenever you insulate, improve windows etc because human beings produce a lot of moisture -washing, cooking and breathing. Make sure you have good bathroom and kitchen fans and if possible get ones with a heat exchanger and humidistat or look at getting a MHVR system fitted (but this needs to be designed and fitted properly)
Then there are more things you can do but I'd go for these first and see how much of a difference it makes.

[quote RoseAddict]@BlueMongoose I’d love to get the old glass fibre stuff out. Can’t stand it! But it’s not in dreadful condition so I was planning to leave it.[/quote]
Probably best just to top it up with better stuff, if it's in reasonable nick. No point handling it if it's in good condition. And the new stuff, if you used something like mineral wool, would help keep the fibre glass dust from the old stuff down.
(Unless it's very recent, it's unlikely to be the depth that's recommended these days.)

I feel your pain as I grew up in a house like this,

a door curtain which you draw at night / very cold days can be very effective

We have our door curtain on a rising portiere rod which means we can have the curtain shut all winter (and when we go out). It also acts as insulation when the sun warms the door on hot days in the summer.

Thank you all for so many helpful links and ideas. I’ll be referring back to this thread for some time as we work through the options.

@wonkylegs definitely some advice there that hadn’t been covered thank you

I must add that we have a door curtain and did double glaze the stained glass and the glass above the door and we attempted to draft proof the door. I’d say the thermal curtain seems to make no difference at all. I think the side wall is just so cold and that’s our main problem in the hall.

We can and will work on the door further though. Will get it re hung and some new draft proofing ad the foam strips we used keep falling off. There’s a brush bar at the bottom maybe we need brushes at the side and top too. Not sure what the best draft strips are for those areas

@RoseAddict
The problem is what gives the best return versus how much it costs can be very situation dependent
I assess people's houses when I do projects (architect) and what works for one won't be right or cost effective for another.
However insulation, ventilation and draught-proofing nearly always can be improved.

@wonkylegs that’s interesting. I’m actually not so worried about return on investment although I don’t have masses to spend and do want to approach it in a sensible order.

@SoundBar I think where the complications come in is with old buildings having stuff retrofitted and that causing unintended consequences like damp

@CaddieDawg I bought the book. It seems to discourage most forms of insulation but I like it. Hope to have more time to read it soon although half term isn’t looking promising!

@wonkylegs and @SallyLockheart and anyone who works with buildings professionally have you heard of this? And is it prohibitively expensive? www.thermablok.co.uk/our-products/thermablok-aerogel-magnesium-board/

Dh and I are agreed we don’t mind spending money that will take 20+ years to recoup we just want to be warm and lessen our use of fossil fuels and the woodburner. We don’t have any plans to move from here.

I’m making progress with the loft clearing! Took an old water tank out today. There was no insulation under that at all. There’s another area under the hipped roof eaves that has no insulation at all and just a massive cavity with a load of old tanks in. Need to board that somehow so I can insulate it as it’s just a big hole at the moment. I can see a big chunk of the wall.

To be clear I’m not thinking of using thermablock in the loft. I was thinking it might enable us to do interior wall insulation on the end of terrace end of the house without losing half the staircase

Photo for anyone who is as excited about loft insulation as I currently am!

It amazes me how we live in such a high tech online world and yet our houses and plumbing etc is so primitive. My house is just fairly basic carpentry and bricks and that’s it.

That wasn’t the tank I took out 💪.

I am aware I’m talking to myself but surely someone wants to spend Friday night discussing thermal efficiency with me 💃

I'm in a similar process of trying to insulate an Edwardian house and fixing some damp issues. Thinking about loft insulation like you, I'm thinking of getting wool (thermawool?) as I read it could be better for older houses.

Hi @dollsmouse8 yes I have been reading up on insulation types and it seems everything has a downside. For sheep’s wool it’s moths and also somewhere I read that if it’s mixed with polyester like in the thermafleece then it’s flammable. Still haven’t ordered loft insulation…

I didn't know about moths with sheeps wool, have you thought about hemp? It's supposed to be breathable. I will look into the flammability.

We did interior wall insulation, basically polystyrene and plasterboard. You loose approximately 2-3inches per wall of floor space but it's brilliant

I've had an Edwardian house, and you can't really insulate it well*

but you can draught-proof it, which is reasonably easy and inexpensive

And you can insulate the loft well, which gives the best money-saving return. I strongly recommend the mineral wool treated with Ecose, which is brown and does not shed irritant dust and fibres. It is made by Knauf but widely packaged and sold as an own-brand. The pack will be marked "Ecose"

If you have bare floorboards the heat loss will mostly be draughts blowing up. If you are taking up the floorboards, or can work from underneath, you can pack mineral wool between the joists. The first, and most important, bit is the first 500mm from the exterior walls, to block the gritty wind bowing up under the skirtings.

A cheap but not durable fix is clear plastic film over the windows.

*to insulate the whole house to a reasonable standard, you would have to do the outside walls. If it is rendered, you could do this externally without spoiling the appearance, but brickwork walls would have to be done internally. you can knock off the old plaster first, and do any rewiring on those walls before covering it. You can do bay windows internally. They are often of frail and bodgy original construction so you can take the old plaster off and find a spidery gap to fill.

p.s.

if you have yellow fibreglass insulation, I would actually mask up very thoroughly and pack it into plastic bags and remove. Or pay someone else to do it. Then hoover it out very thoroughly and lay the new stuff. I react badly to the dust.

An Edwardian house of larger size, built with tiles not slates, is likely to have substantial roof timbers that you can board over for storage (not enough for a loft conversion though)

Our old house was like this. From chatting to the street of identical houses - the only thing that makes a difference on par with the log burner was doing the external insulation and render (like Rockwarm).