External wall insulation. Installation week

Time seems to have telescoped somewhat with both ours, and our installers minds concentrated by upcoming grant deadlines.  

And so it comes to pass that only a few days after finally getting all the figures through on costs for our proposed external wall insulation, we have scaffolders, plasterers and assorted other trades on site as we go full tilt on installation week.

This is a before shot.  The render is nothing special, and we have a problem with water ingress due to a botched installation of the window on the right some years ago (which as a happy by product of the current work has been correctly diagnosed and sorted).

This picture shows the back of the house part way through the application of 90mm expanded polystyrene insulation which should give our solid walls a U value equivalent to a new build house.    

We are promised that it will transform our house from a freezing Victorian semi into a cozy warm home!  I will of course be reporting back over the next few weeks as the walls gradually heat up.

In the next couple of days the plasterers arrive to cover the insulation in a waterproof coloured render, and at that point our house should look as good as new.  

The same process is being undertaken o the front aspect of the house.  Again here is a before shot:

And I'll post the mid-work and after shots in a couple of days.

green deal assessment day part II

So, actually our green deal assessment and epc were completed some time ago now (it was November I think), its just that I hadn't published the post for some reason, and when I did I could not be bothered to re-write it to reflect the passage of time.

So, in the intervening period has anything happened as a result of the assessment?  Well, yes and no.  Nothing has actually happened yet (apart from the installation of 9 LED spots in the kitchen), but progress is being made to a point where next week we will be having external wall insulation installed.

I'm sure this type of delay is not typical amongst people going through the green deal process but I would not be surprised if a fair number of people take at least this long to actually achieve anything or just give up entirely because I have found the system complex and offputting to say the least.

To be fair a large chunk of the delay was caused by a requirement to obtain planning permission from Dartmoor National Park Authority for the proposed insulation.  This took us to mid January to obtain (and added a couple of hundred pounds to our costs).  But once that was received I thought it was going to be a straight forward matter to press ahead with the insulation.  HOW WRONG I WAS!

Green deal assessment day

So today we had our green deal assessment.  This actually comprised a two part process in which the assessor first produced an epc for the house and then went on to produce our green deal assessment.

Well, he would have if technical problems had not intervened to prevent the completion of the actual green deal assessment.

It was a lengthy, albeit painless process.  The assessor arrived at about 9.15 and left just after 2.30 (with a half hour break).   Substantial time was taken to record the number of light fittings, completing a floor plan of the property, check walls, windows, chimneys, floors, loft and our boiler and central heating system.

The outcome of the epc process was not a surprise, the house sneaking into the D category.  Energy saving recommendations included fitting low energy bulbs (which I have now done in the kitchen (Ill pot about this later), topping up the loft insulation and more interestingly, installation of external wall insulation.