How much does thermal imaging cost? I have had an air test done.In Ireland the most common cause of heat loss in houses is by convection (draughts or lack of air tightness) and not conduction (insulation). We live in a temperate but windy climate. From my 2 decades of practical experience in testing, surveying and advising on heat loss solutions I would say without fear or favour we are paying too much attention to the quantity of insulation rather the quality of installation and the big one being the lack of airtightness.
In a standard 3 bed semi or a bungalow achieving decent air tightness very often happens by accident rather than design. However when it comes to dormers, because a significant portion of the internal living space is actually in the roof structure, unless care was taken at design and build stages of the project the level of air leakage is significant. If also there is a suspended (unsealed) timber ground floor then this just adds to the problem. All these issues can be successfully addressed by applying the appropriate air tight measures.
Rarely (if ever) does insulation on it's own address the issue of heat loss and a different approach is generally required.
The solution starts with an independent heat loss survey which includes an air tightness test in addition to thermal imaging survey. Key to this is the surveyor is experienced and expert in their building physics knowledge because internal moisture control through appropriate ventilation is also vital to get get a comprehensive solution.
It appears like you may have received a poor service and poor value for money with the air tightness test.Many thanks for your informed reply.Unfortunately I had an air test done which cost me 400 euro.I was very disappointed with the report.Basically a guy on a laptop.The report gave no guidelines whatsoever other than replace my beautiful timber roof panelling with insulated slabs.I could removed some of the panelling and try and insert insulation. On another post in order to see if I would qualify for PV solar panels a local assessment engineer quoted me 600 euro to carry out a BER assessment.I would also have to have another BER after installing PV panels to see if they reached the required BeR rating.So I am totally disillusioned with testing.It seems whatever grants that are available are simply consumed by testing.The same local engineer quoted me 1000 euro for assessment if Iwas going down the route of heat pump.
If i have the Cavity walls in my house (Built 1950) pumped along with my attic; Do you think there is a need to also do dry lining insulation on the interior walls?It appears like you may have received a poor service and poor value for money with the air tightness test.
Did the 'guy on a laptop' not spend time with you to ensure you understood the significance of the findings in relation to priorities and how best to address the issues uncovered based on your plans & budget and did he address your future likely ventilation needs to ensure good air quality?
In the report you got, what result does it give for your air tightness? You will find this reported as either the q50 in m3/hr/m2@50Pa or n50 in ACH.
Don't let the availability of government grants drive what improvements you make and where you invest. Figure out first what you want to achieve (for example a warmer, more efficient & healthy home), how best to get there from where you are now and then if a grant is available for a particular improvement measure identified, great, avail of it. Too often, expensive grant aided measures are shoehorned into projects with little to no benefit to the homeowners.
Btw, the BER is not a test of the house as such but is more like a rating system (box ticking) based predominately on the age of the property and, in my experience for existing housing, is generally not worth the paper it's written on.
Cavity blocks and cavity walls are two very different propositions. Don't waste your money pumping cavity blocks.Hi, I know its a 9 inch cavity block for the external walls. They would be pumped with bonded bead cavity insulation.
So 'What size cavity? Has the cavity been surveyed?'Cavity wall, my apologies
One of the reasons we walked away from a 1 stop shop in terms of insulation was that their salesman had an obsession with replacing windows but, for example, couldn't explain adequately the benefits of solar. A second review by a local company advised us that we would be daft to replace windows and it would have added minimal impact.The following answer to a very vague question is, by necessity, general in nature.
In our relatively mild climate I would likely pump the empty cavity (assuming it is not a timber framed house), find and address the low hanging fruit with regards to air leakage (actually do an airtightness test first to find the issues), seriously consider a simple whole house ventilation system but would likely not add iwi to the mix for various reasons.
Contrary to general perception, quite often the actual windows & doors are NOT the main cause of air leakage in houses and this surprises people when demonstrated why (Anecdotally, window replacement is recommended in less than 1 in 10 existing houses I test/survey for air tightness)