Retrofit advice for a 1920’s semi

I was contacted by Jeremy and Becky Tudor in Shrewsbury to help them with Retrofit advice for the existing house and to check on proposed details for their planned extension.

It was useful to see the planned details for the extension and shocking to see an electric floormat being proposed as heating for the ground floor. This is an expensive way of using electricity to heat a property. As alternative I proposed a heat pump with under floor heating, which can also deal with the hot water requirements for the house this hadn’t been addressed at all by the architect.

For the existing house I proposed to fill the cavity walls, increase the loft insulation to 300mm and insulate below the timber floor. The architect’s idea was to replace the gas central heating with infra red heaters, so I suggested to either incorporate the heat pump system into the existing house, which would require bigger radiators or to keep the gas central heating and have two separate systems.

I suggested to get an air-tightness test done on the existing house, so any heat leaks could be remedied during the build of the extension. They were very pleased with this advice and wrote the following feedback:

Thank you again Claus, that is great advice and will help direct our builders to make the required improvements whilst they carry out the rest of the work. I feel so much more confident about what we are doing now after talking through with you.