In message , John Rumm writes
Some may recall my thread about installing a pipe for LPG to the kitchen. Unfortunately, I did not see the fitter actually drill the hole, but he made an extremely neat job at both entry and exit. The house, in Aberdeenshire, has solid granite walls - fitter said 32 inches thick.
In article , News scribeth thus
Was Aberdeen actually carved from a fecking great lump of Granite;?...
In message , tony sayer writes
In a word, yes :-)
Our house was built from granite quarried a couple of miles away. The local history group have recently rescued a crane from the quarry, and installed it in the village, after restoration. I even have a couple of photos of my house under construction, 1880-ish. Careful comparison of the photo and the house show the identical granite blocks etc.
Entry and exit holes and explosives for the middle ;-) I wonder what's the U value of 3 feet of granite ? Simon.
Well, if the average house is 0.25, a granite house is about 25 ...
A very interesting paper on a study on just that:
(it seems that figures around 1.1 are not uncommon)
Now that is interesting. Thanks. Yes, construction similar to this house.
Found another (simpler) version also:
Probably better than Victorian 9" brickwork:
OTOH, with all that thermal mass, you *really* want the insulation on outside.
In message , John Rumm writes
Again, interesting. Our house most resembles the Castle Fraser sample, which gives us a value of 1. Similar granite block finish outside,
600mm solid wall with lath/plaster inside.Wife loves a warm bedroom when retiring. During autumn, two hours of oil fired central heating with outside at, say, 7 degrees raises room temperature to 21. Now, with outside temp at 2, the same heating raises bedroom to 15. One quite large Victorian sash bay dormer window in quite good condition, but single glazed.
In message , Martin Bonner writes
Agreed, but am not sure what we could actually do. House is in a conservation area, and a national park. We certainly cannot do anything that would change the external appearance of the house.
In absolute terms, a u value of 1 is not actually that bad - certainly better than many more conventional solid wall buildings which have over double that rate of loss.
Drafts can make a big difference. Windows are more lossy, but only make up a small proportion of the area - they can also be mitigates with curtains.
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