I’m a Builder

Existing Ground Floors

Existing ground floors are usually of two types: suspended timber floors or solid concrete floors and are often an area where lots of cold air can enter the house. There are various ways to reduce these draughts…

New Ground Floors

It is important to make sure that any new floors – solid or suspended timber – in a house are well insulated to avoid cold air coming into the house and creating draughts…

External & Internal Wall Insulation

Most of our older buildings have solid walls – brick, stone or rubble plus stone.

They are often beautiful, ‘high value’ buildings but perform badly in terms of retaining heat.

The addition of wall insulation can make a huge difference to the energy efficiency of a building, plus has the added benefit that the internal environment is more comfortable for the occupants…

Windows

Some older buildings will have the original single glazed windows still in place or will have older, poorly performing double-glazing that is coming to the end of its useful life.

Replacing them with high performance double or triple glazed windows will make a significant difference both in comfort and reduced heating bills…

Renewable Energy Technologies

These are any technology that uses a renewable resource, for example, solar, wind or hydro to generate electricity and sometimes to provide space heating. Installing a renewable energy technology will reduce fossil fuel use, reduce carbon emissions and as electricity prices continue to rise, will help to reduce fuel bills…

Loft Conversions & Roof Lights

Often as the needs of occupants change and families expand, moving house may not be possible and so converting the loft can add more space. However, there are various issues that need to be considered…

Existing & New roofs

Roofs can lose a lot of valuable heat if they are not adequately insulated. When converting a loft or making other improvements to a house, there may be an opportunity to increase the amount of roof insulation and thereby make the house more comfortable and reduce fuel bills…

Good Practice Detailing at Junctions & Thermal Bridging

A surprising amount of heat and moisture can travel through very small gaps in construction and some of the most common building defects arise at junctions e.g. between walls, ceilings, windows, roofs and floors and between an existing wall and a new wall or roof (for example, when building a back extension)…

Ventilation

As we learn how to improve airtightness (i.e. less draughts) in our homes through measures such as adding wall insulation and replacing windows,, it is vital to ensure that there is adequate fresh air and that stale air is removed, something that unintended gaps in the external envelope (‘draughts’) might have previously provided…

Lighting

In the past, light bulbs were very inefficient in producing light. Only 10-15% of the energy used in an old (now phased out) incandescent bulb was used for light-the rest was heat….

Healthy Interiors & Indoor Air Quality

We spend 80-90% of our times inside buildings and so it is important that the interior environment is healthy for us to live and work in…

Sustainable Water Use

Although the total amount of water in and around our planet stays the same, there is a carbon load to water from the energy that is used to clean it each time it is used in buildings such as in WC’s, sinks, baths and showers. Additionally energy is used to heat hot water which also has a carbon load…

Heating & Hot Water

Many existing homes have poor insulation, leaky windows, are uncomfortable to live in due to draughts and expensive to heat.

Not only is it important to make our homes more comfortable to live in but we are also using much more energy to heat them than we should…