Keeping your home warm / heating / energy crisis / insulation etc

Are there businesses at the residential end of the scale that can do a detailed energy survey (more than just someone who tells you to get energy saving lightbulbs) and advise different solutions with different costs and savings, etc? Ideally someone independent rather than someone who wants to flog their solution.

I had my central heating on for 5 hours, full blast, last night and that increased the temperature in the house by about 3.5 degrees (up to 17.5) and by the morning had dropped back down to about 12. Ideally I'd like to know whether this is due to poor insulation, poor heating, dodgy windows, etc. and how to rectify.

Which one did you get? Looking myself, but too many choices!

That’s really decent then, bungies have twice as much roof to lose heat through and that’s a lump of bungalow.

Bloody heck.

A £50-100 EPC will give you exactly what you’re asking for. It will be very vague but you can use it as a starting point for getting detailed quotes.

You can have a look at your neighbours to see if they already have one for a guide:

https://www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate

But keep in mind older EPCs aren’t as good. They have improved info now, maybe since 2 or 3 years ago so find a recent one.

Good to hear that doesn’t sound too excessive.

when i moved into my dormer roofed flat i couldn't understand what the stripes were on the flat part of the dormer ceilings, turns out it was the joists cold bridging more than the plasterboard.
There was no insulation in the dormers since built, luckily i'm a skinny bugger so i could crawl in there and put 270mm in. right arse of a job and i ended up covered in bruises down my front from wriggling in there.

I can pretty much tell you what it will say;
Insulate your roof space to at least 300mm;
Fit double glazed windows (if you already have them replace the seals on the opening windows).
Replace your bulbs with LED.
Fit cavity wall insulation.
Fit temp controlled rad valves.
It’ll also say fit under floor insulation (as if!)
Look at some EPCs online and just work though them on your place.
Do the easy stuff before you get your own one done.

The below was just pulled off the net.

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Cheers, I have an EPC from when we bought the place a couple of years ago (it's on that site as valid until July 23), that's the pretty generic one which talks about lightbulbs.

I want something which is more: this is where heat is escaping and this is how you could fix it or this room isn't heating properly because radiators are the wrong size, etc.

I assume being end of terrace with a big west facing wall is one of the major issues. Not sure how that can be fixed for a reasonable cost or who I would ask about it.

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Elsewhere in the EPC there should be suggestions on what to change, what it costs and what it’ll save. It’s very vague but it’s a start.

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Some local authorities and energy suppliers will have an infrared imaging camera thing you can borrow to see exactly where heat is going.

i just looked up mine, most recent one has expired, the first one was a C, the most recent one a D but it says 'single glazing' which is wrong as it had crappy wood frames with very narrow double glazing.
both say roof insulation 100mm but they were obviously too lazy to look into the dormers, something tells me they don't pay attention when doing them.

Would probably be a C now (triple glazing, roof insulation, properly insulated HW direct fill cylinder and Lot20 compliant heating)

Yes, the main two are:

Step 1: Internal or external wall insulation

Typical installation cost

£4,000 - £14,000 

Typical yearly saving

£371 

Step 2: Floor insulation

Typical installation cost

£800 - £1,200 

Typical yearly saving

£67 

(Plus add solar power)

Which are obviously pretty substantial and pretty vague.

I'm more thinking of hiring someone with the thermal camera who will tell me what's going on.

Yes. These guys in Bristol for example.
https://cheeseproject.co.uk/

They seal up your doors, windows etc with plastic then pump air out of the house to create negative pressure. Then turn the pump off, remove plastic and use a thermal camera to show where the cold air is rushing back into the house. You get a video so you know where to seal up.

You can get advice from a retrofit coordinator. They should give advice according to a framework for energy retrofit (PAS2035) rather than try and sell you something. They can also act as project coordinator for a retrofit project but I don't know if it's worth it. If you're in southeast london, SELCE do a scheme where you can get 1h free advice and a cheap thermal survey. I haven't done it but I'm intending to.
https://www.futurefithomes.org/

replace the seals on the opening windows

Is this easy to DIY?

Hoefla has said as much but look for someone who is Enerphit certified, I was going to get an old colleague of mine to give our house a look over but decided to move (neighbour issues) so never followed it up but if you want a man with a infra red camera and knows what they are doing it's worth a look.

https://mwclubb.co.uk/home-1

This is his website for your info, based in Aberdeenshire so probably not terribly useful but he has interesting info on his site

Cheers all. That should give me some kind of starting point.

Storm guard sell the seal and it’s really easy to replace them,
https://youtu.be/gZn7a9ROS68

Victorian terrace vs dehumidifier and Karcher window vacuum in 10 days gone from 62% humidity to 40% and I haven’t had to turn it on for two days.

I know there was insulation in the flat roof originally as the roofer sent me photos as he was ripping out the rotten stuff while replacing the boards and felt. However, I wouldn't trust that he put new stuff back in. Looking at the humidity levels on Tado, it's now closer to 50% rather than the 70% it was yesterday morning. I'll ask later if there was a visible difference.

Assume similar for a uPVC door?

Is this easy to DIY?

In theory, absolutely. Pull out old seal and press in new one and maybe notch the corners for a neater finish.

In practice, unless they are damaged or obviously perished, I treat seal replacement as a last resort.

There's been so many different frames, with numerous different sized seals that aren't available anymore. Its often a hassle finding an available option which fits in the groove and provides enough compression for a good seal but not too much that the window won't close. There's often bits which were super glued into the groove, so removing that bit is problematic.
Some frames had the seal extruded as part of the frame, so they need cutting off all the way around and hopefully a good alternative works.

More often than not, draughts are down to failed hinges not pulling a casement window shut correctly, or tilt and turn windows needing adjusting/setting up correctly.

Edit. Watched the video ^
His window should definitely have a second seal around the edge of it, as he questions.
Don't start and finish in a corner. Start about half way along the top edge, and the finishing join is dear easy. The ends will stay inplace much better as well.

This is excellent info that will stop me doing something stupid. Thanks.

That’s a huge difference! Did exterior reduction of humidity (not sure of your location) also play a part?

We have old sash windows that we plan to replace with double glazed over the next year to two. However one on them is in quite bad shape and a recent gutter issue meant a fair amount of water got into the wood and it started to leak inside. Is there anything I can do to sure it up over winter and keep it watertight?

Edit - thought I’d posted this in DIY, maybe better there.

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