External Wall Insulation - who's done it, and would you recommend it?

PermaChanged

PermaChanged

PermaChanged

Soldato
Joined
19 Jan 2006
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As per the title, we're considering and are very likely to have external wall insulation applied to our property.

Has anyone here had it done, and would they recommend it as highly as the sales bumf sells it?
 
im guessing it will be down to the quality of whoever fits it . whoever you choose make sure you get plenty of testomonials and if possible see if someone local has it you can talk too.
 
There's a few local companies offering it, one site has multiple case studies posted to their website along with heat camera imagery showing the before and afters, which is comforting.
 
it does work, Councils have done it extensively throughout the UK as part of their energy saving schemes they do.

i spoke to someone who had it done and they said they did notice a difference straight away.
 
Obviously the idea is to increase the thermal efficiency of the building. It works and happens to be one of the most cost effective ways to improve the amount of heat your building will retain. Its better on certain types of house anything that doesn't have a cavity for example will benefit more. Is also possible to do some heat loss calculations on the existing walls and then work out how much you will save. Do you have sufficient loft insulation? I would look at that first. What type of house to do have?
 
We've just moved in to a 1960s cavity built bungalow, from research cavity built walls benefit from this just as much as single block, if not more - it beats in wall insulation being installed as you lose the potential heat bridge from what I've read.

The whole house will be undergoing internal and external renovation, so loft insulation will be looked in to when we have the floor plan and any pitched ceilings built.
 
dave28 said:
it does work, Councils have done it extensively throughout the UK as part of their energy saving schemes they do.

i spoke to someone who had it done and they said they did notice a difference straight away.
Click to expand...

The block that my mum lives in had this done with Rockwall and render iirc, double glazing replaced at the same time. It is very noticeably warmer in the winter.
 
bainbridge said:
I must be, because I thought it was the same thing! If it's external does external insulation not clad the exterior? What is the difference?
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The cladding is usually aluminium with an insulation fibre inside. Grenfell basically was turned into a gigantic chimney as there were no fire breaks between the floors.

External insulation like this is an insulation board of solid foam or similar and is not a fire risk as it is designed to be fire retardant. Even if it was, it is basically glued onto an exterior brick/block wall so it is unlikely to have a significant risk to the inside of a building as bricks/blocks don't catch fire...
 
The cladding for grenfell is also shown in this image:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageser...11e7-adea-f9bd8bb04f4c.jpg?crop=2250,1500,0,0

The 150mm PIR insulation in yellow that was used underneath the cladding (celotex RS5000) was not the fire resistant type so could only be used with the firebreaks as mentioned and fire resistant cladding, there was also a kooltherm PIR used as well which had not been tested to be used in this way.
If it had been installed correctly it would have been contained to a specific area rather than spreading into a blazing negligent inferno.
 
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