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

I’ve looked into aerogel insulation. It is v v expensive.

I looked at both internal and external insulation and whilst more expensive, the cost of internal added up when considering how to retain the original features such as coving and extending window linings and putting the architraves back. I struggled to find tradesmen who specialised in IWI. Having read up quite a lot about period homes insulation, I looked on a website called superhomes which has a focus on renovation/eco refurb of older buildings. I actually contacted a couple of super homers with similar projects to me and they very much confirmed that IWI can work very well but very dependent on the tradesman doing all the extra bits - taping joins and insulating around the edges properly- all the fiddly bits that builders sometimes hurry. One home owner said he supervised the work and helped out to ensure the final 10% of draught excluding/final fix was done properly.

Getting good installers of EWI again takes time and effort but if done well, the only questions are about how they work around windows and doors and do you have enough roof eves overhang. Insulation around windows should be wrapped back around the window itself to ensure no thermal break, hence my point earlier about considering window replacement at that point. If the end external wall is the biggest problem, that could be done as a standalone project.

Also, if you are replacing the floorboards on the ground floor, you will be taking off the skirting boards to do so. Insulating between the joints and putting new boards down will give you a great chance to minimise gaps between the floorboards and the walls and fill/plug all those gaps between the floor and skirting boards. If you have a well ventilated sub floor, gaps at skirting boards level can be very draughty

Oh, just looked at the superhomes website. It’s still there but it’s been relaunched and clearly become much more commercial. You used to be able to search for superhomes by measures taken and age of house. Now it’s selling eco refurb assessments. Be wary of those - can be useful but I had one done and it was too generic. All measure and options outline but I wanted someone to say, if this was my home, this is what I would do in this order and why (ie avoid duplicating work, as in if you are doing this then, it makes sense to do that at the same time)

Block the flue with a "chimney sheep"

Lots of replies! Thanks for the thoughts everyone.

@PigletJohn that is so useful to have an insulation suggestion as I’ve been going in circles with reading up on horror stories about different types. Will look up Ecose.

The loft project will take a while as I’ve only managed to clear half of the stuff from it so far but yes that’s the obvious place to start. I’m not sure if it’s fibreglass but it is yellow and doesn’t seem in bad condition actually so I wasn’t planning on moving it, just laying something else on top.

I think the next in line will be some under floor insulation but I feel the cold really comes from the end of terrace end of the house and that we’ll never be warm unless we do something about that. Internal insulation really isn’t a possibility unless it’s very thin hence my interest in the thermablok. How expensive is too expensive @SallyLockheart?

And yes @SallyLockheart the roof overhang would be a problem with EWI on the gable end wall. I think we’d have to do it in conjunction with a loft extension and new roof if we ever did that which isn’t currently on the cards. There’s only one small window on that end though so that part is easy.

@RoseAddict. Starts at about £60/70 per sq meter. Possible that can be directly wallpapered / painted but might need to be skim plastered on top. I get the impression it is trickier to work with than standard insulated plasterboard but doing a staircase with be trickier still. If you factor in labour and extras - removing and reinstating the skirting boards for example - then the cost may well be approaching the cost of EWI.

@SallyLockheart ah yes I can see it would be hard to work with on a staircase. I’m not really happy to lose any width from the stairs so I guess I’m back to looking at external insulation again for the side of the house. It’s a shame as we matched the yellow stock bricks for the kitchen extension and they did a great job of finding good bricks and blending them. Won’t do anything to that wall this winter though so plenty of time to think about it and see how much difference the loft and underfloor will make first.

As a temporary measure I was looking in the under stairs cupboard at whether I could line it all with carpet or this stuff www.sheepwoolinsulation.com/product/silentwool-carpet/ but there are so many pipes and meters and fuse boards on the wall it’s hopeless. I can do the floor and up the wall to the bit where I can see daylight through the airbrick. I’m going to focus on marginal gains for now I think. I bought an escutcheon for the front door.

the end wall could easily be 15 to 20 sq.m depending on size of house.

You might have a look at the plaster to see how thick it is, and if you would gain by having it knocked off before lining with insulated plasterboard.

try this or this

(I can't make them work today, might be my security settings) and compare losses when you define the wall as 9" brick, and when you define it as insulated, and all other factors unchanged.

Even a modest layer of PU foam makes a big difference on a 9" solid brick wall (which has terrible thermal performance)

foam has about twice the insulating performance of mineral wool. My house has (I think) a 3" cavity filled with blown fibre, which made a tremendous improvement.

Yes I was wondering how thick the plaster is and whether we could save some space by going back to brick before insulating. It was plastered with some kind of cold grey concretey stuff back when he house was underpinned approx 20 years ago. Not sure what that is or whether they’d have put that over the pre-existing plaster or skimmed over it. It’s so rock hard that when I try to put a picture up it shatters in all directions.

you could perhaps slowly drill a hole into it

lime plaster is creamy white

gypsum is usually pink but sometimes grey

sand and cement render is sometimes used indoors, either when damp exists, or sometimes by regional practice.

We have an Edwardian house too. We’ve spent a fortune on improvements that give better insulation. We had original stained glass in the windows and doors (sounds like your front door is similar) but all wooden single glazed. We put the stained glass in double glazed timber and did the windows first and then the front door a few years later. Both have made an enormous difference but replacing the front door made the biggest difference. I cannot describe how nice it is to have a warm hall whenever we step out of the living room. So I would really recommend that.

We have all those types of plaster in different places @PigletJohn but it’s grey cement on that end wall that I want to insulate. Yes I suppose I could find a discrete place to drill a hole. I have drilled into it to put up a storage unit but I wasn’t thinking about how deep it was then.

@WellTidy what type of door did you go for?

We replicated the original door, which was wooden, so the new one is wood too. The stained glass is the top half of the door. We replaced the door frame too. They had to fit it from the inside of the hall as we have an arch over the porch.

We had an incredibly draughty hall because the original door didn’t fit into the frame properly (lots of gaps) and neither did the letterbox. It is so much better now, I cannot describe it.

Before we did that, we had thermal curtains inside the door which were great for the short term.

Hello! Just been reading with interest. Also in an Edwardian semi, which can be on the chilly side.

@WellTidy I am impressed the new door made so much difference. Our various draft excluding measures on the front door seemed to help very little… I’m repeating myself now but we already did draught strips, letter box cover and thermal curtain and I wouldn’t say any of that made much difference. The hall still feels arctic which is what lead me to believe we need EWI. This thread is making me feel more optimistic that things can be done to improve it though!

Hello @ethelredonagoodday

We moved into a thirties bungalow a few months ago. We've been counting the days till the insulation man came. Today was D-day, but he failed to arrive. Can't get hold of him so we might be back at square one! Reading and following with interest.

I really am not overstating the impact that the new front door and doorframe had. I know it had a huge impact as that was the only job we did in the house that year and there was an obvious before and after.

Our old one was incredibly draughty though, and we loved with it for too long really (about 8 or 9 years). I am still really grateful for it when I open the living room door (where it is cosy) to the hall to go to the loo!

@WellTidy do you think it’s significantly better than having an old door rehung and I was thinking of also having work done on the door frame and letterbox as needed

I can’t compare, sorry. Our old door had a split in the bottom panel and looked like one of the sides had been badly part planed at some point, so we didn’t even contemplate it. It was always a matter of waiting until we could replace the door and frame and put the original stained glass (single pane) in a double glazed panel.

I can compare to having thermal lined curtains behind the door though. They helped but the new door and frame is loads and loads better. I don’t think of the hall as being at all cold now, and it was arctic.

1930's Front (Insulated) Door Design.

We have been looking to change a standard wooden 1930's Front Door (3 panels in the bottom half) with a composite/insulated front door of the same style.
However, very tricky to find a insulated front doors in the 1930's.

Been reading this with interest as I'm currently trying to battle the elements in my own house - lovely original features but deathly cold!

One thing I would echo is be wary of wool based insulation products if you live in the south, or already have a mild moth problem. I work in the heritage sector in a buildings conservation role (think National Trust houses and the like) and have seen a mild moth problem turn into a ginormous one. Adding wool carpets and rugs can be great though - you can vacuum those. I have to say I don't have much experience of it used in a domestic setting though, so someone on here might come along and say generally it's fine in this context. I'm just slightly scarred by what I've seen I think! Same goes for wood or hemp based products and the potential for woodborer/biscuit beetle activity.

If you have exposed floorboards but need to maintain sub floor ventilation you can get a product called StopGap, basically just strips of V shaped silicone that you push in between with a credit card. It won't suddenly solve all your issues but one more little thing that might make a difference.

Bang per buck:

Loft first, then draughts.

New windows last, if ever.

Plastic front door, never.

The walls are a very big area if you are end of terrace. If you ever need to replaster a room, you could internally insulate the external walls. If and when you need to take a floor up (why?) that is a good time to clean out the subfloor void, open up the airbricks, run new underfloor pipes and cables, put in new sockets, insulate the pipes, treat the woodworm, and finally pack between the joists with mineral wool. All these jobs are a breeze once the floor is up. Taking up a floor is a lot of work once you have filled the room with furniture and put down carpets. Heat loss through a floor is almost entirely draughts, there is zero convection, almost zero radiation, very little conduction. Most of the draughts come up through the gap under the skirting round the edges of the room, especially at outside walls, unless you have no carpet and bare boards with gaps between them. Mineral wool is especially good for blocking these, as it is easy to cut and stuff into the irregular gap between the joists and next to the wall. Rigid foam boards are much harder to make a precise fit to block draughts, slower and more expensive. Mineral wool is also fireproof and inert. Obviously use the brown type treated with ecose that does not shed irritant dust and fibres.

I'm sure you know that open fires and woodburners send a lot of hot air up the chimney and suck cold air into the room to replace it. Holes in the ceiling also send warm air into the loft and suck cold air into the house. Downlighters are especially bad, followed by leaky loft hatches. If you are curing the draughts you need to add purposeful ventilation especially in the bathroom and kitchen which need effective extractors.

Walk round with a joss stick to find the draughts.

Close internal doors and avoid open plan which will encourage warm air to rise through the house.