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

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We have three dehumidifiers

Yeah your house isn't working or the walls are very, very cold.

Get a fuck off massive woodburner if you live in the sticks.

We’ve got a 7kW burner going right now. Some of our walls are stupidly thin - wattle and daub only a few inches thick, quite a bit of single layer of brick, lots of draughty windows, some bits made of witchert.

wattle and daub

There's your problem, you're living in a Viking longhouse. I recommend upgrading to something post 1700.

Sorry, I have UTFS but it's not thrown up much.

We live in a townhouse, built about 25 years ago. The house is extremely cold, every morning throughout winter when you come down the stairs to the kitchen on the ground floor, it feels like someone has left the door open all night. Even now after a couple of cold days it's Oodie time. And the middle and upper floors aren't much better. Every wall in the house is freezing cold to touch.

A couple of years ago the hot water expansion tank in the airing cupboard on the top floor failed, filled up with water and ripped itself off the wall, bring a chunk of plasterboard with it. Looking through, I could see the outer brickwork, no insulation present whatsoever. It really makes me wonder if the house is even insulated on the lower levels.

Loft is fully boarded with lots of insulation under the panels.

I've read about spray foam insulation but it doesn't sound like the greatest idea when it comes to moisture management. Doesn't anyone do spray mineral wool spray any more??

At that age it should have cavity walls. You can tell by the appearance of the brickwork.

They might not be insulated though.

It's possible to add insulation to the cavity, but it can have side effects.

https://www.rmax.com/blog/mineral-wool-vs-spray-foam#:~:text=Mineral%20wool%20and%20open%20cell,a%20closed%20cell%20spray%20foam.

Looks like you could get boards of it to insulate walls?
Or get someone to do it.

Yep, defo cavity. Really don't like the sound of foam spraying tho :0(

Easy to do when building a property I guess, not so easy when you have to rip plasterboard out of every single wall to fit the mineral wool :0(

There's stuff that you can get in and taken out later if needs be. It's loose like packing chips but obvs. doesn't degrade. They can drill another hole later and suck it out.

Kinky

@dbr has filled his cavities with thousands of tiny polystyrene balls (ooh err) so he might be able to help.

Personally I don't like the idea of spray anything when it comes to insulation.

Do you know what's under the ground floor?

Get cavity, should make a big difference. Avoid spray foam at all cost, insurers and folk dont want involved in houses that have it.

If you can afford it, get an assessment from a retrofit coordinator or at least someone who can do moisture modelling for you.

I keep my moisture modelling for the evenings and weekends.

That’s interesting to know, will investigate, thanks.

Pretty sure it’s build on a concrete base.

Just installed a Homely to control our ASHP. I am both engineer / installer and customer.

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Can anyone tell me what the difference is between these two Tado starter kits:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/tado°-Starter-Kit-Thermostat-Programmer/dp/B098BKHT3R/

And

https://www.screwfix.com/p/tado-v3-wireless-heating-hot-water-smart-thermostat-starter-kit-white/141kt

…except price?

Screwfix one doesn't have the stand maybe? Amazon one doesn't list it in "Included Components" but it's in the title - it says "incl. Stand".

Other than that, comparing the two "included components" lists there's no practical difference. ("Fixings" in one is probably the "wall mounting screws, wall plugs, sticky pads, wiring labels" in the other)

If youre interested in the Tado system, I'd suggest getting hold of the EU model which has throttle control over the boiler. In Brexit wisdom, the UK version is less featured, it can only switch on and off.

You can get the EU model straight from Tados online shop, not sure if its on black friday though. I have the UK one bought from Screwfix which works great, but I'd search for the EU model if I bought again.

Top intel. Seems bizarre to have two different models, can't be much of a cost saving. Probably Brexit.

I thought it was the boilers that throttled themselves and the thermostat/timer switch was just on off?

This is what I thought as well…

@Jameo do you have more knowledge to drop in this respect?

Can't say ive every heard of a smart controller "throttling" a boiler.

I will also say I find tado's shit to wire, they are too small and you have to cram them in. We fit hives now mostly!

I think by throttle Jameo means modulate the burners / flow temp via modbus rather than just on/off. More nuanced and efficient control.