Home Insulation Services

coxy123

Folks...I hope this hasn't already been discussed, but I'm just wondering what peoples experience has been in relation to Home Insulation up-grading. My current 2 storey detached house was built in 2000 and believe it might benefit from add'l attic insulation and possible add'l. cavity wall insulation.

I am due to have an assessment from a local Co. called Eco Insulation and am wondering does anyone have experience of them or any other one of these firms that are currently offering this type of service(there are many of them )?

Tks.

coxy123

AnCapaillMor

Got our 1952 house insulated, walls and attic and you wouldn't believe the difference. Well worth doing, last year in the cold the heating was on most of the day, after the insulation it's just a case of turning the heating on for 30 mins every few hours. Pretty sure they were the guys to do our place. were in and out in 2-3 hours.

don't forget this place for a grant. Piss easy to do up, little or no bother.

coxy123

Appreciate early feedback.

TheDietShop.ie

Attic insulation:- around 250-300mm (Glass Wool) is standard. You probably have 100-200mm already so it is just a matter of topping it up, make sure if you are doing so to insulate your water pipes and water tanks at the same time.

Cavity Wall Insulation:- Don't bother, your house if built in 2000 should be reasonable, I see people getting their cavities pumped full with god knows what. The cavity serves a number of purposes and filling it would be crazy. I would not buy a house that has had it cavities filled.

Skuxx

TheDietShop.ie wrote: »

Attic insulation:- around 250-300mm (Glass Wool) is standard. You probably have 100-200mm already so it is just a matter of topping it up, make sure if you are doing so to insulate your water pipes and water tanks at the same time.

Cavity Wall Insulation:- Don't bother, your house if built in 2000 should be reasonable, I see people getting their cavities pumped full with god knows what. The cavity serves a number of purposes and filling it would be crazy. I would not buy a house that has had it cavities filled.

Yeah the cavity is there to stop moisture from the outside travelling into the inside brick work and making the walls damp! I have the cavity in my house insulated along with a lot of other people I know and a cold bridge has never been an issue!

Op I'd say give Ecowarm a ring, they are definetly the biggest around and will do a top job...and do get the cavities done, it'll make a huge difference!

maddragon

I am a civil engineer and an energy consultant and I would strongly encourage you to insulate the cavities. The modern cavity fill has a silicone coating which prevents water transfer across the cavity.

TheDietShop.ie

See what qualification the company in question has, chech to see all their insurance documentation.

It is just my professional opinion and one viewed by a lot of the most academically qualified people in this field both in the UK and Ireland. There has not been enough research done into pumping cavities, 20 years down the line there will be problems so make sure that the company is covered.

I have heard of cases where wall ties have corroded.

At the end of the day it is your decision but there are other options.

TheDietShop.ie

I am qualified in the field but do not have commercial interest in the industry so can give an unbiased view.

To strongly reccommend someone to have the cavities of a house built in 2000 filled is to put it mildly "unusual"

Henry Ford III

Probably a silly question but would a superwarm home (timber frame with standard exterior) benefit from cavity insulation?

As far as I know the cavity is already filled with sheets of insulation.

I intend increasing the attic fllor insulation depth and also putting insulation into the rafters.

TheDietShop.ie

you only insulate in between the rafters if you plan on using it as a living space. No use otherwise. You probably have at least 100mm of glass fiber between the joists so another 150mm to bring it up to around 250mm would be ideal.

As for the cavities , it depends on when your house was built?

Henry Ford III

House is early 90's. 10cm attic insulation already down as you rightly said.

By Superwarm I meant timber frame inner construction surrounded by traditional bricks etc, and with the cavities filled with sheet polystyrene(?) I assume that's still good to go.

Yep I'll upgrade the attic floor up to 25cms, and ensure pipes and tank are well insulated too.

I'm tempted do the rafters too whilst I'm at it. Overkill perhaps but could this do any harm?

TheDietShop.ie

Get the attic topped up with 150-200mm of glass fiber, not sure what the current reg reccommend . . . 270mm - 300mm possibly. Shop around for the best price, always found that Tadgh O Connors in Rathkeale and NCW very competitive.

As I mentioned earlier there is no logic in insulating in between the rafters unless you plan to turn in into a livable space

celliman

I got my attic insulated 2 months ago,i went up last week to fit a heat lamp and found my attic full of condensation.All the vents in the attic were covered with insulation.bottom line is you got to have air flowing in an attic space,if not you will end up with mould and rotting timbers.

TheDietShop.ie

that a very good point. Dont cover over those vents in the soffit.

coxy123

Thank you for all the advice so far..I'll let you know what recommendations are once I have them and share with all for possible further discussion.

TheDietShop.ie

There are also plenty of websites where you will get independant advice so do your research, you might get better deals if you wait until the spring/Summer.

Best of luck and we look forward to hearing how you got on.

coxy123

Well, I had the insulation Co. out to me last Fri. Essentially, recommendations were to pump cavity walls even though they already have a 50mm board insulation along with adding an add'l. 200mm insulation roll in the attic space - incl. proper lagging jacket for water tank and insulating any exposed pipework.

starfish12

OP i'm in need of similar insulation - but in Dublin. Roughly what price were you looking at for the attic?

coxy123

I'll let you know later starfish12...am at work at the moment and havn't figure to hand.

coxy123

€550-250(grant)

ecowarm

I know i may be considered biased, but here is some advice on home insulation;

we would recommend to top up any cavity with sheets of insulation already existing in the walls, the reason being usually the sheets are badly fitted and the fact of the matter is a 2mm gap in two sheets of insulation reduces its effectiveness by almost 40%.

A house with for example 50mm white aerobord in the cavity has a u-value of 0.52 approx. the problem is that is on paper and it hugely depends on how it was installed, me personally have never seen sheet insulation installed 100% perfect, when you top up with bead cavity wall insulation you are guaranteed the end result of 0.31 (approx depending on the wall construction) reason for this is the bead fills the voids/gaps in the existing insulation which means that then works 100% plus the advantage of the additional insulation filling the cavity.

You do not need to worry about water traveling across the cavity and causing dampness as it is impossible, the unique matrix of the bead allows water to drain away before traveling across, the only way water could possibly get across the cavity would be if you had dirty wall ties or the cavity blocked prior to the new insulation being installed, if that was the case you would already have dampness on the inside leaf and no company should insulate it if that is the case.

There is no coating on the bead, the bead is simply exactly the same as the sheet insulation except the beads in the sheets are compressed together, Aerobord itself is completely water proof and will not soak moisture, the general rule of thumb is - if water does penetrate the cavity for every three beads across 5% moisture travels across, so by the time you get to the 5/6th bead no moisture is traveling across, it's simply draining away, the raw material used in manufacturing bead insulation is Neopor by BASF chemicals.

Bead insulation has been on the market in Ireland since the mid 80's and there has been no reported incidents of failure, most if not all problems that occur is down to poor workmanship of the company installing the bead.
most bead is generally the same as it is all made from the same raw material, the Quality control of the manufacturer is the most important thing as it is possible to expand the material more than you should to make it go further, but the end user will not get the same result, Anyone claiming to have a better bead is simply wrong, on paper anyway, there are a lot of small manufacturers of bead who don't have the same quality procedures in place so their product can vary from batch to batch.
Most bead insulation comes with a 10-25 year guarantee, but in essence it is all the same, just different manufacturers give different time limits on the guaranteed.
the only cavity insulation to give a lifetime guarantee is RockWool, which was first used as cavity insulation 47 years ago.

A TIMBERFRAME HOUSE CANNOT BE INSULATED WITH ANY KIND OF CAVITY INSULATION OR EXTERIOR INSULATION.

A minimum of 300mm attic insulation is required to meet todays standards, i must emphasise that is the minimum, i personally would recommend 400mm, it doesn't cost much extra and makes a considerable difference, any more than 400mm and your into diminishing return, for example my house has 1000mm of rockwool attic insulation but it only reduced the heat loss by less than 50% in comparison to only having 300mm but it would cost you over 3 times the price.

very important when insulating an attic space is to maintain the ventilation, and insulate tanks and pipes correctly, it is very important to use the correct thickness pipe insulation and to ensure all joints are taped securely, A lot of contractors only use pipe lagging with a 9mm wall, this is not sufficient, the thickness of the pipe lagging should equal the diameter of the pipe eg; 15mm pipe- 15mm wall on the lagging.

I would recommend Rockwool attic insulation over fibreglass as it doesn't settle and is guaranteed for the life of the building.

insulating the rafters is not recommended as it is not as effective as insulation laid on the ceiling, also if insulating the rafters with rolled or rigid insulation you must leave a 50mm gap at the back of the insulation to prevent condensation, in a retro-fit situation it is almost impossible to insulate between the rafters as they are usually to small to install the required amount of insulation and maintain the correct amount of ventilation. Basically it costs more and is not as effective.

hope this has been informative to you, most insulation companies have a download section where you can get information about the products, you can also get info on seai.ie, nsai,ie, ask4rockwool.ie, or ecobead.ie just to name a few places

Just ensure you pick the right contractor as there are new ones popping up every day, get more than one price and get references and you shouldn't go wrong.

Darren Lee
Managing Director,
EcoWarm Insulation

phog

I passed a house today that was only built in the last 5 years or so and I notice it has the walls drilled as if it got the cavities insulated, I wonder is this really necessary.

Also, I was in Tipperary today and see a new place has opended Greener Homes, on what i call the main street, it might be worth getting another quote there.

ecowarm

We would often do houses that are only a few years old, to be honest houses built after 2006 shouldn't need to be done but thanks to the building boom houses were just constructed without any attention to quality and short cuts being taken during construction, you must remember insulation wasn't that big of a deal up to recently and it's something you cant see, some builders discovered an easy way to save money was to skimp on the insulation.

It is not uncommon for us to come across houses that should have insulation in the walls, missing insulation in parts, whole walls or even have none whatsoever.

if you really want to find out how good your existing insulation is installed/performing you can use thermal imaging to see if there are any leaks, i would recommend this even if you recently have had your cavities pumped if you are concerned about the quality of workmanship.

most good insulation companies will provide this service free of charge, but it is important to have the heating on for at least 4 hours full blast, and perform it after 9pm and before 8am this time of year, If the sun hits the house it will show up perfect, you need the walls outside cold and inside hot, the bigger the difference in temp the easier it will be to see missing insulation.

Do not leave anyone do thermal imaging during the day as problems will not be highlighted.