It just needs the powers that be to change the building regs. We can’t go into politics here but anyone with their eyes open can see why this is not done. In my view all new builds should have solar tiles as well as other environmental measures. It seems obvious.
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So true, we come back from our evening dog walk stinking of the stuff, especially bad when it’s misty/foggy. It may well be carbon neutral to burn but clean it isn’t. Plus unless you can grow enough of it in your back yard/forest it requires a lot of diesel to be burnt just to get it to your home.
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Debs, just to clarify your wall construction.
Do you have an external brick skin / cavity / and internal timber frame layer? Or, is it completely timber construction with timber cladding?
The article also said that it’s mainly the wealthy who burn wood, and more for its aesthetic appeal than anything else. Kick off the wellies, hang up the Barbour, and kill a few people with the wood fire. It’s all good when you just don’t care.
Yes, hence the slow move towards natural breathable insulation in timber frame houses that allow moisture to wick through without causing damage to the construction.
Obviously, to do this right without incorporating mechanical ventilation is quite difficult, however as there needs to be attention to product detail and combination.
That sounds about right. The small city I live in (Christchurch, NZ) had terrible particulate pollution from wood fires when I was growing up in the 80s. In the late 90s open fires were banned and they and enclosed wood burning fires were replaced via a subsidised scheme. The difference has been astonishing. As a kid it was common not to see the end of the street for the smog and now that never happens.
Apparently the theory is that it uses more energy to keep it on constantly and low setting.
Unless I slept through a crucial session of school physics, it is not more efficient to keep a boiler at a constant temperature. Otherwise we’d all have kettles boiling away constantly instead of boiling water on demand.
The only form of heating for which this argument has relevance is heat exchange. These units’ efficiency is lowest at the coldest outside temperature, so it is sometimes overall more efficient to maintain a constant temperature for the thing you want to heat, to reduce the amount of heating work required when it’s coldest outside.
As part of the run up towards retirement, we are already dealing with some of the energy inefficiencies of our 1960’s house.
I increased the loft insulation a couple of years ago before boarding out most of it, and the gas boiler was replaced at the same time.
We have just had the elderly, poor quality, windows and front door replaced with higher quality kit. I am now tackling two redundant vents in the living room (there because many years ago there was a gas fire with back boiler there). I have already done one of them, replacing the open louvres with an adjustable cover that fully closes. At the moment we have no working heating in the room, as the new radiator has not yet been filled to allow the decorator access behind it next week, but already it feels a heck of a lot warmer.
After that, the main remaining task will be to sort out the loft hatch, as it is very poorly fitting and has no insulation on it.
Hopefully all these changes will make it a lot less expensive to keep the house warm, and we will then be in a position to assess if we need to consider other measures.
As far as electric usage goes, there’s definitely things that we could do better. One annoyance is that none of our televisions have an on/off switch, and so are constantly using juice on standby. Will probably put smart plugs on them. The same applies to the Fire TV sticks. Would like to do the same for stepson’s Xbox, but the howls of protest might make this impracticable.
The biggest culprit is probably the coffee machine (ECM Mechanika). We are both unashamed caffeine addicts, and it takes the machine a good 20 minutes from switching it on to the point where it is properly warmed up. It’s already on a smart plug, but I need to do some experimentation as the current draw is very high when it is warming up, so I need to find out the break even point between turning it on and off, and leaving it on. The boiler inside is pretty well insulated, and the top of the machine is covered with cups being warmed with a thick cloth over them.
Things will have to get pretty grim for me not to leave the HiFi on most of the time.
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Blimey, we all need some pleasures in life…I’d let this one lie!
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From my own experience it depends upon the stove and what you are burning. A properly fuelled stove run correctly should have virtually zero emissions, except for CO2. At our old house we had some smoke (white) for the first 15-30 mins of lighting the stove but after it was at the correct temperature the flue gasses were perfectly clear. Stoves that are throwing out rubbish invariably means you’re burning rubbish or not got it adjusted correctly. There is an issue with people who don’t know what they’re doing thinking they can throw any old rubbish into their stove… old pallets, painted/treated wood, wet wood, even house coal. If you just burn correct dried wood then there shouldn’t be any smoke.
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Unfortunately not:
‘But even the best stoves still emit air pollution, in their biomass report, the Air Quality Expert Group found that burning wood in an Ecodesign stove was similar to the emissions from six Euro V1 HGVs.
From: The great wood burning stove debate – AirQualityNews
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tbh there seem to be multiple studies/reports that refute these figures. I admit that’s only after about 15 mins reading on line.
Yes it’s external brick skin / cavity / internal timber frame with cavity damp membrane and some kind of insulation in-between the wood frame (just have to hope the insulation has been fitted correctly because it can’t be seen behind the interior plasterboard).
The house sits on a concrete base. Typical of houses built from the 80s onwards…
I would too. Its perfectly possible to wear a hair shirt and sit on a really sharp spike but one has to strike a balance. A bit more walking and cycling rather than driving will save far more, both in cost and emissions.
Thats unfortunate and indeed a missed opportunity. I’ve just looked it up, over 90% of the new delivered houses in my country are now without fossil fuels.
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This is a good point, during the 1980s environmental orgs, such as Friends of the Earth, wanted every new build to have solar panels enough to be electric self sufficient. It probably didn’t happen because the government didn’t want householders to get free electric, better for the shareholders to make them pay for expensive metered power from the grid. Looks like this money making scam has backfired now we’re living with global warming problems.
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Ok, then yes you can realistically only insulate on the inside.
Assuming your framing is 4x2’s that would give you 100mm insulation in the walls, only about a 1/3 on current standards.
Your only realistic options are:
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Remove the current insulation between the studs and replace with something much better, Kingspan for example, whilst at the same time adding a further 50-100mm over the studs. This will prevent cold bridging too.
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Keep your existing wall intact and dry line over with an additional 50-100mm.
Anything thicker than 100mm is probably not practical on the inside, but you will know that.
Anyway, its certainly a big investment but worth it considering whats happening with fuel prices…and bearing in mind if you are quite practical you could do much of it yourself???
Also, make sure your ventilation bricks and weep holes are clear of debris and stuff.
Also, something to note and that many people do not realise that insulation products come in many different R-values, ie. it’s ability to reduce heat loss through it, therefore by replacing old insulation with something much better will certainly help.
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Ha ha…this reminds me of a report prepared by our head of R&D some ten years ago after he fitted detailed energy monitoring at his home. He thought he knew where the energy was being used in a ‘typical home’, washing machine TV, kettle, cooker etc., until that is he spotted a significant and lengthy power draw from mid evening running well in to the early hours, it turned out to be his teenage son sneaking in gaming sessions.
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Yes, the expense and disruption would be hard to justify. For us, I had always planned to rewire, replumb and replaster almost the entire house so it made sense to put it back with as much insulation as possible. In fact it would be obligatory now to comply with UK building regs.
I wouldn’t expect miracles from a bit of foil behind your radiators, but for the small amount of cost and effort you may as well.
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