Measuring energy efficiency effectivness

Thanks - not sure I understand though! What are the consequences if retrofit work isn't done to building regs spec?

it's my (limited) understanding that all retrofit work that attracts a grant, and/or requires planning permission ('development'), must be done according to regs. I'm less clear about anything that falls outside of that.

Most BCO's would probably be more than happy that you had made any attempt to improve the insulation, especially where a solid wall is concerned. Some might be sniffy about interstitial condensation etc though.

As it was in my 1976 semi. Sand+cement (very weak mix) basecoat and a wafer-thin (barely 1mm in places) grey gypsum plaster top coat. This developer really knew how to eke out the gypsum plaster.

Might have felt less cold to the touch, and reduced condensation, but its reduction in heat loss at 3mm thickness was minimal.

Insulating doesn't cost even 10% of new build price. There are 3 main options: cavity fill, external insulation & lastly internal.

houses new & old vary across the map. To demolish millions now seems rather silly.

sometimes, often not.

most houses aren't. Build new, but don't be a fool & mass demolish the old ones.

myth. Dehumidification is an ok alternative in most cases.

a bad solution

sometimes yes. In most cases fixing an old house makes more sense. The worst old housing is mostly long gone now.

yes

not even slightly. It's glorified bubblewrap. You can read up on it, it's a known almost-scam.

the question is why you believe such claims.

certainly closer

tnp might not like old houses, many do. All houses have good & bad points, including new build.

Yeah, houses & multifoil would work the same way if we turned the radiators up to red hot. But we don't & they don't.

'insulation board foil facing' is not glorified bubblewrap. It's (usually) PIR which has decent properties for conduction, bonded to foil which has good properties for radiation (and a vapour barrier). If properly installed there are no gaps so convection is prevented.

Foil coated bubblewrap is foil coated bubblewrap and has poor U-values for conduction (which is the majority of winter heat losses), but that's not what we're talking about.

Multifoil is somewhat better (many layers make for better U-values) but expensive and hard to install properly. But we aren't talking about that either.

If you just wanted to block radiation a sheet of baking foil or 'survival blanket' metallised plastic would do it, but it would be terrible for conductive losses. Fine on your car windscreen in summer, not good as your only winter protection.

Theo

Obviously we're talking about 2 different things

aka slum clearance :)

That describes most of the original plaster im my 1908 house. The brick underneath is/was more plumb than the finished plastered wall.

Also no corner seems to be 90 degrees and in some rooms the ceiling drops by 1 to 2 inches across the room.

You cant buy that sort of character..:-)

Of course you can, any Persimmon new build will have those features.

Yep, when I purchased it the estate agent listed it with many period features - like the lead water pipes, the pipes still hanging out of the wall for the gas lighting, all the wood being painted dark brown with a tar like substance, walls with a quarter inch of distemer paint etc. They also mentioned it could do with "some" modernisation :)

Well, my back garden was listed as a 'wildlife Haven' meaning it had been left for about 50 years and was simply a mass of thorn scrub.

It's now an orchard and some specimen trees...and badgers and foxes and deer abound even more.