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Insulating your Home

Insulation has been used within the home for many years, installed within the walls, roof and floors of a building.

Its full potential however, has only recently been realised, with the advent of the modern cavity wall home in 1920's leading to the widespread use of insulation within wall cavities by the 1970's. Insulation is generally used throughout a modern building, however for the majority of pre-existing stock of housing, primarily those built prior to the 1970’s, there is significant scope for improving a home’s heat retention through the use of Insulation.

There are a number of options open to homeowners in retrofitting insulation, these include:

Roof / Floor Insulation

Insulation is needed in the roof void, as 25% of heat loss in a building occurs through the roof. In order to achieve satisfactory compliance with Part L (Conservation of fuel and power) of the Building Regulations, loft insulation should have a minimum depth of 25mm (10 inches).

It is recommended that eco friendly insulation be installed within the roof void such as recycled denim, wool Icynene, Nanogel to use of Thermafleece insulation (sheep’s wool). Thermafleece insulation is recommended, which is BBA certified, and although being slightly more expensive than traditional mineral fibre or similar, they are significantly better for both the environment and a user’s health in the long term. This type of insulation also acts as a natural fire retardant and is very easy to install, avoiding the necessity to require trained professionals to install.

Installation of loft Insulation

Roof insulation may be installed either on ceiling joists, or fixed to the roof truss. If laid on the ceiling joists, separate insulation should be laid between and over the joists to maximise limitation of heat transfer. An alternative is to install insulation on the underside of the trusses, generally only undertaken on roof/ loft conversions where it is the intention to inhabit the roof void.
If however, you do not have a roof void, due to a flat roof construction, you can use a number of alternative products such as Cellotex or Kingspan insulation. Depending on whether you have a cold, warm or inverted flat roof construction, you will need to choose insulation to suit.

Please feel free to read Insulating Flat Roofs for more information.

Wall Insulation

If you do not know the wall construction of your property, you will need to find out, or seek a professional, as this will stipulate the methods of insulation that you can take.

Cavity Wall insulation

If you have a property built circa 1920+ you may find that there was no cavity insulation installed, in which case, you have the option of an injected cavity wall insulation or use of cavity insulation batts, both of which are highly effective at reducing the transmission of heat, leading to substantial energy savings.
Alternatively, if you have a solid brick house, or merely want to improve the heat retention further, you may want to try External or Internal Cladding materials.

External Cladding Materials

Externally insulated cladding materials may be used, such as Thermawall although this is a generally unpopular option for many as it is highly visible and takes up significant space, adding up to 40% to a walls thickness and costing up to 3-4 times as much as traditional cavity wall insulation.

Although it still manages to have a payback period of approximately 10 years, and presuming you have the space, and are not fussed about appearance (consider planning regulations, conservation area/ listed building consents) this may be a suitable choice.  

Internal Insulation

This is similar to external insulation, except it involves what generally constitutes dry lining, of the internal skin, with recommended ‘Eco Rock’ which constitutes 80% recycled material; This material drastically reduces airborne dust and pollutants by up to 60%. Dry lining may be applied to the existing plasterboard, as added insulation or to the internal block skin itself. They generally result in a loss of 2 inches off the internal room dimensions.
Both external and insulation cladding materials benefit, in their use to be installed on numerous construction types, including solid brick walls.