Energy Costs continue their upward cost trajectory and we are being urged to improve the energy efficiency of our homes.
Whether a homeowner, private landlord, Social housing provider insulating granite built stock is a challenge. Its fundamentally difficult and often folk do not realise just why. Even the industry misunderstand the issue or glosses over it.
Here is the deal. In a granite built wall, most times there is airflow behind the lathe and plaster from under the floor, the solum, up the wall cavity between the lathe and plaster and granite outer layer to the roof void. The solum is open to the outside world through airbricks.
This is the problem. Your lathe and plaster is the only insulating layer on your wall. This thermal discontinuity means the granite plays very little, or no, role in heat transport. On a cold windy day, you can often feel the wind around loosely fitted sockets and switches. Also between party walls where we expect no heat transfer we still have this thermal discontinuity so we lose heat through the party wall.
Spring 2020 we will see the launch of Orbis Energy Innovations with a unique Internal Wall Insulation system Obis IWI. Characterized by RGU Scott Sutherland School of Architecture this system will reduce heat loss through the wall section by upto 90%.
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