Insulation

CE184 - Practical refurbishment of solid-walled houses from The Energy Saving Trust is very good for advice for retrofitting insulation for solid wall housing. See also GPG293 / CE118 - External insulation for dwellings which covers new build and refurbishment and CE120 Energy efficient loft extensions

http://www.action21.co.uk/existing_buildings.html

U-value calculator

Sheffield Insulations

External Wall Insulation
Energy Saving Trust products: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Compare-and-buy-products/Insulation/External-insulation

Insulation Types
For full fill cavities from sheffins:

Cork
http://www.environomix.co.uk/?area=products&p=cork

http://www.alumascfacades.co.uk/cork.aspx?id=117

Thermafleece
Thermafleece utilises hollow wool fibres, blended to an optimum density producing first class thermal and acoustic performance whilst minimising impact on the environment.

http://www.secondnatureuk.com/Natural_Insulation_Products/Thermafleece/

Aerogel
http://www.aerogel.com/markets/c_house.html

Spacetherm
http://www.spacetherm.com/

EcoTherm
http://www.ecotherm.co.uk/ecotherm.aspx

Celotex
http://www.celotex.co.uk/

They do a product consisting of insulation bonded to plasterboard, Celotex PL3000: http://www.celotex.co.uk/Products/Celotex-Products/Celotex-PL3000

Kingspan
http://www.kingspan.com/

These products are expensive. However Kingspan can also be bought as seconds, panels which may have slight damage but essentially fine to use that can save a lot of money.
 * http://www.griffithsandson.co.uk/tengomediashop/copy_of_Tractors.html
 * http://www.secondsandco.co.uk/

Brick slip faced insulation
Renovating the existing stock is going to result in a lot of placed where a brick face is desired for appearance sake but there isn't room or the budget for one (for example in a passageway or a front facade), in cases like this brisk slips ficed to insulation might be an answer.

Wonderwall cladding system
The Wonderwall composite panel system comprises a clay brick slip finish attached to a backing panel / carrier sheet which in turn is adhered to a Kingspan board.

http://www.buildingdesign.co.uk/arch/hanson/hanson.htm

http://www.hanson.co.uk/175/buildingsystems/wonderwall.html

http://www.hanson.co.uk/samples/pdfs/Brick%20and%20cladding/Wonderwall.pdf

http://www.redbloc.co.uk/wonderwall.html

Hemcrete
http://www.limetechnology.co.uk/pages/hemcrete.php

Pavatex
http://www.pavatex.co.uk/

Heraklith
http://www.skanda-uk.com/heraklith.htm http://www.skanda-uk.com/heraklithProducts.htm

Foamglas
http://www.foamglas.co.uk/

Pros: inert, impervious to moisture, U values are comparable to wood fibre insulation

Cons: impervious to moisture

Ideal for below DPC, eg: http://climatex.org/images/634/

K rend
http://www.k-rend.co.uk/

Cavity Closers
300mm cavities require special detailing.

BigBlok Cavity Closer System
125mm, 150mm and 300mm closures are in-stock now with special orders of incremental sizes easily achieved. http://www.cavalok.com/wide_cavity_closures.html

UNICLOSER XCC
UNICLOSER XCC incorporates a high performance extruded polystyrene thermal core and at least one rigid dpc profile They also say they will make them upto 300mm wide http://www.cellecta.co.uk/Cavity_closers.htm

Wall Ties
How do you build with a wide full-fill cavity...?

With long wall ties. These are available in stainless steel (Ancon, Helifix), pultruded basalt (Magmatech/Ancon 'Teplo'), Nylon ('REFUS'), and GRP ('Qwik-fix FGRP').

The only two stainless steel wall ties readily available in the UK at 300mm cavity width, are the Ancon and the Helifix.

''Using steel wall ties increases the heat loss by between 17 and 33%. Another way of expressing this is to say that this means that the ties in our 300mm fully filled cavity are negating the insulating effect of 75mm(Anacon) or 50mm(Helifix) of insulation. This sort of inaccuracy can be a real problem for low energy buildings.''

''An alternative would be to look at plastic wall ties, of which the best known is the Dutch Refus wall tie, made of glass reinforced nylon, but the new Irish Qwik-fix is also useful for cavities up to 200mm. The Refus is used in Holland in fully filled cavities, but only up to 250mm cavity width. It is harder to specify since it has no BBA certification or other current UK standard, but personal experience has shown that the manufacturer’s test data can be readily used by a structural engineer to determine suitability (my house is built using these some 10 years ago). The low conductivity means the effect of these ties on the thermal bridging is negligible, such that a 250mm fully filled cavity with these ties is equivalent to a 300mm with the Helifix, or a 350mm with the Ancon (stainless).''

Wide and thermally efficient cavity wall tie manufacturers:


 * Ancon Engineeering, Sheffiled, UK http://www.ancon.co.uk
 * Helifix, London, UK http://www.helifix.co.uk
 * Borring PLast, Denmark http://www.borringplast.dk
 * Coghlan Engineering, Ireland http://www.qwikfixings.com

http://www.buildingforafuture.co.uk/autumn01/37-52.pdf

TeploTie
TeploTie is available for use in cavities of 50mm to 300mm in width.

http://magmatech.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=27

http://magmatech.co.uk/downloads/TeploTie.pdf