If you live in a home with solid walls, 45% of your heat is escaping through the walls which is costing you money. Insulating the walls will dramatically prevent heat loss in the winter and greatly reduce your heating bills.
Solid walls can be insulated either from the outside (external) or the inside (internal).
Solid walls are mainly made of brick or stone and are found in most houses built before 1919.
The easiest way to tell is from the pattern of the bricks on the outside of your house. If your home has solid walls, the bricks will tend to be placed head-on and lengthways in an alternating pattern like this.
If the brickwork has been covered, you may be able to tell a solid wall by measuring its thickness. Go to a window or door on one of your outer walls, and take a measurement there. If the wall is more than 25.4cm thick then it probably has a cavity; solid brick walls are usually around 22cm thick; solid stone walls are just a little thicker.
External Wall Insulation (EWI) involves fixing a layer of insulation material to the wall, then covering it with a special type of render or cladding. The finish is usually a textured render, pebble-dash or sometimes a brick slip or a brick effect render finish could be used.
External solid wall insulation requires a specialist approved installer. To find one in your area, visit National Insulation Association website.
* figures provided by Energy Saving Trust. Costs may vary significantly depending on level of work required.
Detached | Semi-detached | Mid terrace | Bungalow | Flat | |
Fuel bill savings (£/year) | £415 | £245 | £155 | £165 | £115 |
Carbon dioxide savings (kgCO2/year) | 1,840 kg | 1,090 kg | 670 kg | 740 kg | 510 kg |
External wall insulation: £5,000 to £18,000
Internal wall insulation: £3,000 to £14,000
Internal Wall Insulation (IWI) is applied to the internal walls of a building. It is done by fitting rigid boards to the wall, or by building a stud wall filled in with insulation material such as mineral wool fibre.
When using ladders, the ladders should not be directly rested on the render coating as this may cause damage even if protective ends are fitted to the ladders. If ladders are used, the system designer recommends using a load spreading plate to distribute the weight over the rending coating.
Should a new fixing point be required after the application of the system, the system designer recommends the following:
These can be purchased direct from the system designer SPS Envirowall.
It is advisable to avoid planting climbing plants such as Ivy close to the wall as these can be very destructive over time to the render surface.
As part of the installation, our contractor has applied mastic sealing around windows and doors. Mastic sealing does not have the same life expectancy as the insulation system and should be renewed periodically where appropriate.