Our journey has been one step at a time

Do you struggle to keep your home warm in winter, only to battle stuffy, overheated rooms in summer?

For decades, our 1930s home HINDOVER did just that, costing us more in energy bills while making our living environment increasingly unhealthy.

The facts:

Heat was escaping through our roof, floor, windows and walls,
Everyday, we create a warm damp internal living environment.
Our mechanical extract systems were outdated and inefficient.

The result:

With poor insulation, our building's fabric was cold
The air inside my home was damp and moisture saturated.
With inadequate mechanical ventilation to my kitchen, shower rooms and clothes drying area, we had the perfect conditions for condensation to form.

The solution:

To improve our internal living environment and prevent block mould forming and thriving in these warm moist conditions.

Our home needed ‘work doing’, so we assessed the situation

In Autumn 2023, as self-builders, we started our deep domestic retrofit of HINDOVER, our home for some 20years. We would follow the Fabric First Approach principles.

At first floor, our 1930’s detached house has sloping ceilings (SKEILINGS). Viewed from the attic, no insulation was visible, between the rafters to our sloping ceilings below. This skeiling fabric had no thermal property (u-value). It could not prevent HEAT LOSS through the roof fabric. This element was cold in the winter and hot it the summer. This is why our heat escaped in winter while in summer, solar heat gain overheated us. Every year we had black mould covering this sloping surface. You could clearly see the positions of the rafters behind the plasterboard.

First on the list:

To tackle the root cause of this mould growth, a very common problem found in 1930’s homes, we would vastly improve HINDOVER’s roof thermal performance and overall ventilation, both natural and mechanical.

and took the first step:

Our aim was to:

Deep Retrofit our pitched loose rafter roof by airtighting and insulating the fabric and
Ensure a continuous insulation layer within the attic space, first floor skeilings and external cavity wall construction.

Our process was to first:

Empty the attic space and remove the old poorly installed fibreglass quilt insulation.
Treat, as a priority, woodworm in roof timbers.
Fix 50mm soft wood battens to outer edge of the pithed rafters. This will maintain cross ventilation roof void
Fix 50mm rigid insulation between each rafter. Foam fill and silver all joints and junctions.
Staple fix airtightness membrane by Siga. Airtightness tape all joints and fixing points. Allow for overlap with rooms below.
Remove first floor plasterboard skeilings. Part remove ceilings to allow easier fixing access.
Fix 50mm battens to outer edge of rafters to maintain cross roof ventilation void from eaves to ridge
Fix 50mm rigid insulation between each rafter, ensuring continuity with external wall insulation

Still on going, our winter job

Fix 100mm (2layers) rigid insulation to underside of rafters within attic space and first floor rooms.

We are NOT considering alternative heating systems (ASHP) or renewable energy sources (solar PV, ASHP) yet. We will, of course, be installing a whole house mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) system. This newly upgraded space is perfect to house our MVHR system.

In these photos, see how we transforming our leaky, unhealthy roof to provide warm, airtight spaces that will help us stay comfortable year-round while cutting our energy bills and carbon footprint.