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

Actually finding the nice metal adapters is really difficult though. And the plastic / printed ones are shiiiiit.

We ended up just changing all of our valves (albeit to bog standard chrome finish, not fancy pants anthracite).

Most box store own brand valves seemed to be m30x1.5 when I shopped for them.

[Edit] What @stevo_com said.

Alternatively, take full advantage of your rights under UK distance selling regs, order stuff, try it, and send it back if it doesn't fit. You may be out the cost of delivery.

Most box store own brand valves seemed to be m30x1.5 when I shopped for them.

This also seems to be true IME. It was only the old valves on rads here in this cowboys' playground that needed adaptors.

no way of telling if a uk product is made by them

Google images search really helps with this, as does doing some shonky cross matching of product codes, SKU codes, EANs etc.

All the Duratherm stuff, for examples, seems to be made by this Polish company , which suggests that it's all M30x1.5 as standard.

Are people just insulating inside solid brick houses directly on to the walls?

An architect friend reckons lots of people are and that without first creating a ventilated cavity they are going to cause mega problems in ~10 years. Brick is porous if not permeable, depending on orientation and sun exposure it usually only dries fully once every four years or so, significantly aided by the heat from inside the house. Once insulated that internal heat won’t help the drying process much and eventually the brick will be damp right through, but you won’t know because it’s covered internally by insulation. The damp will just slowly fester behind the insulation getting worse and worse until eventually signs will appear internally but by that time the wall behind will be a gopping bio hazard and will require significant repair.

you can do internal insulation or external but either way with a solid wall you need to be using hygroscopic insulation like sheeps wool or wood fibre and make sure your house is well ventilated

we'll likely be getting an MVHR system alongside EWI in our victorian terrace

I thought there was usually an airgap between the internal stud wall and the brickwork.

But yeah as with all these things shiesters gonna fit shite.

From reading around breathable external insulation seems much more desirable, even if it does cover up your lovely Victorian brickwork - or shitty pebbledash. Fucked if I can trust anyone to do it right though.

I’ll be internally insulating one solid brick wall but it’s south facing on the 6th floor and is covered in tiles with no rising damp.
I’ll be very surprised if there are any damp issues caused by this insulation method but if the property was the usual Victorian construction then a different approach would be needed.

Apologies, just seen the replies re TRV’s. Eventually I got a reply from someone who knew what they were talking about from radiatorvalves4u and their Duran and Ramon ranges do not need an adapter.
If anyone needs a set of straight valves in antique bronze let me know as I ordered a set by mistake.

You’re talking about folk who kingspan it. I agree it’ll cause problem down the line on old places.

Would cavity walls not also become biohazards from the same logic?

they have weep vents to stop interstitial condensation

And if the brick gets soaked right through the moisture just runs down the inner face of the outer skin to the ground, in a solid brick house it’ll rot the joists.

just runs down the inner face of the outer skin to the ground

Unless it finds a tie, in which case it traverses it to the inner face of the inner skin, whilst at the same time rotting the tie.

Or it’s had retro installed cavity wall insulation. Which is now sodden.

Yay!

Got my annual statement through from EDF and compared to 21-22 my electricity usage is down 11% and gas 20% (!)

And that's with the house generally feeling warmer and (I think) worse weather?

Spend on dehumidifier, hygrometers, window vac and various draughtproofing solutions more than recouped, but I think just turning the fucking boiler down (you idiot) has probably made most difference.

Thread dredge reply but i’m finally doing the insulation and just over half way through so a few observations and info for anyone else thinking of DIY internal insulation with phenolic foam backed plasterboard.
Unless your wall has less than 5mm tolerance for flatness it will likely need to be battened, my walls are mostly level for flatness and the foam can deal with any discrepancies apart form the odd place where we have had to think about fixing placement so as to not bend the board too much.
If you want to lower your EPC then take photos and keep receipts as you will not get a rating without documentary evidence of the installation
Don’t underestimate the time it takes to scribe a board edge and do any cut-outs for cabling and switches, we are cutting a rebate at the bottom of the boards for central heating/electricity and foil taping which is tedious despite working out an efficient way of cutting it back.
Don’t bother with thin boards, 50-60mm (62-72 total board depth) is the sweet spot and will get you close to new build regs for a solid out uninsulated cavity wall (not the recent new lower rating). beyond this depth your insulation gains aren’t increasing much and not worth the expense or loss of space, this will also make it compliant with building regs.

The first room done is N/E facing and 2 exterior walls, we haven’t moved in yet but this room was always colder than the other 2 south facing rooms but with no heating on in the flat it’s noticeable the room is not colder than the others .

This stuff is expensive 15 boards cost us about £1850 as i forgot to order in advance and it’s hard to get stock especially if you need to order more or less than one pack of boards so paid a premium to get them at short notice.

Cold bridging needs to be looked at and I wouldn’t be comfortable doing an older property that had damp/moisture issues without dealing with those beforehand and getting professional advice on what insulation to use, I have concrete columns in the corners that will be left uninsulated as they are around 14in thick and a lower U value than a brick cavity wall but higher than an insulated one I have the boards to do them but that’s only if i get condensation on them which is unlikely but theoretically possible.
Not had a winter in this property yet but i expect it to make a difference as well as in the summer as the south facing rooms bake in the sun for most of the day.

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Nice - looks good.

We have a Tado thermostat, receiver, bridge and TRV going spare. The bridge is the version before subscriptions were introduced so has the premium subscription tier activated for life, for free.

Any interest before ebay?

Dm'ed

Looks good! I'd like to do this, problem is our kitchen is only just big enough to be a galley so even 60mm is pushing it

Interested in the trv if its going

No, it’s May and it’s a very nice 19 degrees in here. No I don’t want to turn the heating on.

Tado smart energy saving analysis, (sponsored by BP).

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If the room is comfortable you need to tweak the offset on the valve or temp reader.

I get the same thing from our Tado. The thermostat is reading the correct temperature, it's just the app having this strange idea that every room needs to be at 21ºc to be comfortable.

Our heating is set to 19ºc, and the app has told me we are consistently 'cold' for the six or so months we've had it.