More insulation

With all external walls now covered in external insulation we are waiting with baited breath to see what difference it's going to make to the climate in the house.  

On Friday my wife was convinced she could already feel a difference in the back bedroom (which was notoriously chilly previously).  

We've been told that it could take a few weeks for the full effect to become apparent due to the thickness of our walls - meaning that it takes time for the walls to heat up.  Still the early signs are encouraging; it definitely feels as though the heat in the house is being retained longer once the central heating turns off.

Anyway I promised some pics of the front of the house as the insulation was applied so here they are:

Before:

Here is the front covered with the insulation boards.  The pic below give an idea of the thickness of the boards that have been applied.

And here you can see the fastening system.  

This is then covered with 3 layers of render and mesh to provide a waterproof external surface.

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.

astronauts need lunchboxes too!

There I was thinking that astronauts existed only on freeze-dried powders and tubes of food paste, but apparently not.  Watching a documentary about the space shuttle I was interested to find out that the astronauts all got to choose their favourite sandwich to go into space with them.  The "house mother"  who looks after the crew in the days preceding the launch then ensures that each astronaut has a packed lunch under their seat at lift off which they can then tuck into when they reach orbit! 

What a pity I hadn't known sooner I could have sent NASA a full set of our space lunchboxes perhaps even lunchboxes personalised with each crew members' names and photo.

I guess its too late now the shuttle programme has stopped.  Maybe Mr Putin would like some for the Russian rockets?

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.

Green deal assessment booked

I'm so fed up with paying npower £250 a month to heat and light our home that I've booked a green deal assessment for later this week to see if there is any way we can reduce our current spend on utilities.  

I've just sent the assessor a big bundle of information including the old epc, gas and electricity bills so let's see what he comes up with on Thursday.  I'm hoping it will be something a bit more interesting than just changing some lightbulbs to crappy energy efficient ones.

Planning a trip to deep space (well Leicester)

I'm very excited by the prospect of a trip to the National Space Centre a venue which should appeal enormously to our two older boys (and if I'm honest is right up my street as well). 

Of course as part of the trip I'm carefully planning which lunchboxes to take with us for the long journey:  Fortunately Lunchboxesetc.co.uk produce a fine range of Space Lunchboxes which will be perfect (note to the buyer at the NSC - if you want to stock the lunchboxes in your gift shop just give us a call!).  At the moment I can't decide between the Space shuttle on the launch pad lunchbox:

or the amazing solar system view lunchbox:

I'm not sure about filling them with space food though!