Improvement option evaluation

Based on the survey and our discussions below are the measures we suggest would be most suitable for your home. The measures suggested below are energy saving and mitigating measures based on the Trustmark quality scheme and:

PAS 2035: 2019 specification for Retrofitting dwellings for improved energy efficiency.⁠

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Carrying out all the measures listed below would significantly reduce the energy bills at this property and make it a much more comfortable place to live. You may wish to carry them out in phases over time and there are suggestions for that later in the report.

I have included some notes in the table below and how they relate to your particular property and any risks associated with that particular measure.

The other pages in this section consider phasing for your project based on our discussions, a proposed improvement plan with estimated reductions in bills and savings in carbon. The final section includes a carbon cost effectiveness assessment, this looks at the cost per tonne of carbon saved over the lifetime of the measures. This takes into account the lifetime of the improvement so for example floor insulation may be expensive but lasts over 40 years so makes a good saving in the long run.

Measures suitable for your home

Measures suitable for your home

Energy efficiency measure

Site specific notes

Risks

Phase 1 measures

Remove solid fuel heating

You could just not use the fire but probably good to remove it once you are confident you won’t need it.

All gas fittings need to be removed and carefully sealed.

Block open chimneys

Once the fire has been removed you can block the chimney to avoid draughts. Your chimney is a fairly minimal pipe so it might be easier just to remove it in the loft and break any thermal bridge.

The system needs to be installed carefully and completely.

Floor insulation (solid or suspended)

The main opportunity to improve the insulation envelope in your house. We checked through the hatch and it is currently uninsulated. You may be able to insulate from underneath given the space available, otherwise you would need to take up the floor, add insulation and replace it, this is probably not too complex as you have large boards for the floor. The kitchen may be more difficult.

Floor insulation needs to be carefully detailed to ensure the joists do not rot.

Loft Insulation (between and over ceiling joists)

The loft insulation is a bit of a muddle at the moment with some at joist level and some at rafter level. As discussed when we visited we wouldn’t recommend this as moisture could become trapped between the two. Instead improving the joist level insulation and removing the rafter level insulation would be an improvement. This would mean you can have fresh air circulating above the joist level insulation to avoid moisture problems in the roof.

Care needs to be taken to ensure loft insulation doesn't block existing ventilation in the loft.

Decentralised mechanical extract ventilation

The measures above are all improving the air tightness of the property. This means we will need to ensure that in the future wet air is extracted and fresh air provided to the house in a controlled manner. The ducts from your bathroom fan are vented through the loft in flexible ducting, I would recommend replacing this with rigid ducts. Rigid ducting ensures a good flow of air avoids excessive turns or compression of the duct.

The system needs to be installed carefully and completely.

Phase 2 measures

Phase 1 measures all cover fabric improvement and would be one way of improving the house sufficiently to be ready for an air source heat pump and bring the carbon emissions below 1 tonne per year.

Solar photovoltaics

Your roofs are not ideally orientated for solar PV but this is an estimate of the return you might get from panels at the rear of your house as per the diagram below.

The system needs to be installed carefully and completely.

Ground-source heat pump

This would be viable for your property once fabric improvements have been carried out to improve it sufficiently. A full heat loss calculation would need to be carried out by your MCS certified installer before doing this. It may be that you could install an air source heat pump with the right conditions. I have put together an estimate of the

heating demand here.

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Finally you can apply for the

Renewable Heat Incentive

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to contribute to the costs of this.

Performance in use may not reflect performance in modelling,

There are no rows in this table

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