New A2 House Is Freezing!

Ive seen a very good result on a fairly tricky one off house I'm certifying. it's a double house with flat roof section' block build - needs care but the owner has been watching everything and doing anything he could to prevent issues.

He got a result of Just under 0.6

Best I'd seen before was around 0.9

Hi. I just bought an A2 rated new build (3 bed semi D, corner house, 113sqm, high wind exposure) and having similar issues to OP.

Our ATT result is 4.51. The house has central extract mechanical ventilation. I know that 4.51 is an atrocious result. I've highlighted this to the builder and asked for another test to identify where the leaks are, and I've requested a thermal imaging camera survey. The builder replied today to say no to both requests and that as 4.51 is below the maximum of 5, it has therfore passed the test/legal requirements.

Is there any other avenue we can go down to get the builder to improve the air tightness or is that it? Losing the energy to keep battling them over this...

thats probably due to Air to water its whats heating the house and uses electricity. Not sure how big the house is but thats normal for most Air to water houses.

I have friends with A2 rated houses(independently checked) and have bills of over 250 per month with just the heating on 17 degrees for 2 months. no one living in the house or anything. Others have told me that are living in their houses saying bills of over €600 per month. Note these are big house at over 2500 Sq feet.

Extract vents connected to the system are in the kitchen, utility room and bathrooms.

There are open vents in the kitchen, living room and 3 bedrooms. They're not connected/hooked up to the mechanical ventilation system itself. I really don't understand these systems at all. But something isn't right, I suspect now it's inadequate insulation.

The living room (14.5sqm) for example lost nearly 4 degress of heat overnight from 10.30pm to 8am (19.8 degrees down to 16.2). Left the downstairs thermostat at 16 as a one off just to see what the results would be.

My January electricity bill was e250, for two people in an A2 rated 120 sqm house with the heat pump keeping a temperature of approx 21 degrees constantly.

About half of this was the heatpump.

I have a wifi energy monitor that shows how the heat pump consumption changes on cold days, so I expect this to go down significantly as the weather improves.

It pulls about 15kW on a coldest January day and 8kW on the most recent warm days. It takes about 3kW to heat the water tank.

Buuut.. I don't get oil or gas bills, I don't buy coal or sticks. The house temperature doesn't move from 21. I'm looking at a small solar setup to cover the base load of the house and hopefully knock this bill in half.

Great insight. Yeah yours is about half the size of my friends house so that could explain the reduced cost but they could be on a high unit price also.

Can you let me know how many KW units you used for January instead of cost? at my current unit rate i would expect around 1200 units for that price.

First i heard of this wifi energy monitor. Is it built into the air to water unit or is this a separate device?

I have my solar setup install but not running yet so cant really comment on it. Its well worth doing especially with the grant but you may not see much of a difference in your winter bills as we get max like 10 hours of sunlight and you know yourself it more bright than sunny. In the summer you will probably more than cover the cost of the air to water but will be sending some or most back to the grid. I think i seen in one of my qoutes that with my setup with 16 panel(6.6KW) system that it will generate 1800 units. I'm not sure is this a generous or conservative amount though.

I had a retrofit done on a C3 rated house now apparently A2 rated no solar PV but has triple glazed windows and new doors and chimney sealed. Had original cavity bead filled prior to me purchasing it. For the ventilation Superhomes used aereco EHT2 vents DCV which seem very poor to me. I await a first harsh winter but I suspect it’ll be expensive to heat.

the AirTightness test was done when the house was missing 2 window panes that had broken on installation but I have a report with the “Energy consultants” van photographed at the front of my house. Otherwise to be honest I wouldn’t have trusted it was done as I was at the house at 10am and a tiler I had seperately was there at 930am on the morning that the blower test was done and it was apparently all done prior to that?

Do not do this unless you've got controlled ventilation.

Terrible advice.

Do not do this. You need to have air moving in your house to keep the humidity down.

Have a look for Smart Vents, they fit into the hole in the wall and automatically open and blow air into and out of the house based on a thermostat and humidity sensor.

Those are new to me. Any link to them by any chance?

Ah, it wasn't this, but something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Steinberg14-Diameter-Decentral-Ventilation-Recovery/dp/B0BJZN89MF/ref=asc_df_B0BJZN89MF/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=641612032736&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7095624096301535601&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007850&hvtargid=pla-1930202183429&th=1

The one I saw was networked, so you could adjust the fan speed and times with internal temperature and humidity,

You will likely get away with it in a 90s house as there will be uncontrolled drafts from all sorts of places but please put a wall vent in any room with fire or oil burner for your own safety.

You might say it's been fine for the last 30 years BUT the wall pumping might just reduce drafts from cavity enough to now make your house dangerous for carbon monoxide. Get a carbon monoxide alarm today if you don't have one.

To finish this argument take a look at grand design program on channel 4 & tell me how many holes you can spot in there Houses.

Just after fitting new windows in my house i am alongside a new housing estate That the houses cost 925 thousand each & are fitted with senator windows that my fitter said are pure muck they come in from eastern europe & fall apart after 2 years so new houses arent built as well as you think.