The project

The house needed to be rewired and re-plumbed, with a new kitchen, and bathroom, and of course redecorated throughout. The garage was demolished and replaced with an extension providing an office, additional space for the Kitchen, a Utility room, a wet room, and a Garden room, (which may eventually become a ground floor bedroom)

All the changes were thermally modelled in a software programme called Ecotect which made it possible to look closely at several options for improvements and the cost effectiveness of each one. I’ve been using this for years now and though I always describe it as a ‘comparative tool’ the results have been quite reliable. Much depends on having the right weather data.

The first thing that we needed to do was reduce the heat losses. Cavity wall and Attic insulation is a must especially since there are 100% grants available in Wales. I wasn’t keen on external insulation, not least because almost every Architects house in town is a white modernist rectangular box. There are grants available for insulation to solid walls but they’re much less, only occasionally available, and this house wouldn’t qualify because of the cavities. The details at the eaves had to be carefully thought through to ensure that the insulation ran through to meet the attic and provided a continuous insulated envelope, and this had to be carefully explained, (and checked), with the contractors and sub-contractors. Generally the fabric ‘U’ values achieved were slightly better than the AECB Silver standard.

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