Exterior Insulation

With colder weather fast approaching we fully expect to put away our summer clothes and to soon be wearing outdoor coats, scarves, hats and gloves throughout winter. But isn’t it strange that we don’t also add an extra temporary layer of insulation to our homes just for winter?

Is it even possible to put a coat around our homes?

Typically we simply switch on the heating and shout more often when the children leave the front door open and let the heat escape. We might add a layer of loft insulation and seal up the windows and doors from draughts but usually that’s about the extent of our efforts to keep warm.

Putting a ‘Coat’ on your house.

As the diagram shows the walls of your home can lose considerable heat. Unless you have a new home your walls are not well insulated by today's standard.

This can be increased from the inside by applying more insulation to the internal walls which shrinks each room size. Alternatively, if the construction design suits, you can fill the cavity wall with foam or tiny polystyrene beads.

What about insulating from the outside?

This household, on the left in the photo, decided to go one step further and effectively ‘put a coat’ on the house.

At first glance it looks no different but subtle signs like deeper recessed windows show the change in wall thickness where rigid foam panels covered over with smooth render wrap the entire building.

Unlike bricks, insulation material is usually very fragile, not particularly weather resistant and not normally good at taking impacts. It’s therefore understandably not usually put outside a building. However this brand has a guarantee for several years and overcomes these issues to effectively be used like a warm winter coat.

In contrast to Solar gain the external layer of insulation allows the now internal walls to absorb the warmth from the central heating and then retain this heat. It then keeps the internal temperature stable throughout the day and night regardless of the outside temperature. Also any gaps in the brickwork are now sealed preventing chilling draughts.

This form of external insulation is well used in Poland, the home land of the owners, and so it’s far from unusual to them.

“Close to the main road and without any buildings or trees around the house we’re exposed to a brisk chilling wind all year round.”

“The house was always cold because the walls were stealing the heat, our fuel bills were high and we were cold. We had draughts coming through every crack in the bricks, black mold from condensation too.”

“Our home in Poland had this and we were surprised not to have it readily available here. We looked around and ended up ordering direct from Poland and doing it ourselves. It’s not an especially difficult job and within 3 weeks we’d wrapped the house, re plastered and painted it.”

“Wrapping the house closed up every gap and hole that caused drafts and to cure the mold and condensation we added adjustable window vents and extractor fans in bathrooms to provide ventilation.”

You might think the cost would be excessive compared to the benefit for the average house but at €2,000 the heating bill has reduced by around 30% and 7 years later it’s more than paid for itself in both savings and comfort level.

We all expect our homes to act well through all seasons but this is at a cost of fuel bills which will always be rising.

To 'keep it local' we 'googled' and found an alternative Dublin Supplier of a similar product which you can investigate yourself.

www.GoTherm.ie

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