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Absolutely this! You have to seal and insulate when switching to heat pump. We just switched our house HVAC to heat pump, and there is no way the heat pump woul

Absolutely this! You have to seal and insulate when switching to heat pump. We just switched our house HVAC to heat pump, and there is no way the heat pump would be able to keep up with the heat loss had we not added an extra layer of insulation to the exterior of our house. Insulation is passive energy savings, so it just makes the most sense to focus there first.

hedora 5y ago
You can get pretty big heat pumps these days. If you told the person that sized your heat pump you had a religious objection to insulation or something, they would have just stuck a bigger unit in (greatly reducing your quality of life and increasing your power bill, of course).
alliao 5y ago
mind if I ask how do you tackle external insulation? is it a common thing done over there?
- _spduchamp 5y ago
  I wouldn't say it is common, but there are more and more architectural firms focusing on sustainability. We hired a local sustainable architecture firm when we decided to do our reno. They come through the house with a thermal camera and found huge heat loss out our old plaster walls on the 2nd floor. The solution was for contractors to remove siding, add external vapour barrier, insulation, and then we did wood siding on that. Attic was already well insulated. The results look great and and house is super comfy now. No more drafts.
  - archi42 5y ago
    Can't reply to GP anymore, so I'll reply here. Over here it is actually pretty common, it's currently a huge pain to find contractors (plus they're getting more expensive by the day). We talked to a lot of people who about what they did, and I have two findings: 1. Sustainability (of materials) is usually a lesser factor, most people seem to care most about the energy saving and to some extent the improved comfort. 2. Most people do these improvements over a long time, e.g. do the roof when they can afford it, save some money (or pay off the loan) and do the windows,... - so that might take up to a decade to get the house up to a decent standard. Doing "all at once" is more rare, and those people are surprised when we tell them we plan to do as much as possible early on, as we can then earlier realize the potential savings. btw, I envy your draftfree house ^^"

hedora 5y ago

You can get pretty big heat pumps these days. If you told the person that sized your heat pump you had a religious objection to insulation or something, they would have just stuck a bigger unit in (greatly reducing your quality of life and increasing your power bill, of course).

alliao 5y ago

mind if I ask how do you tackle external insulation? is it a common thing done over there?

_spduchamp 5y ago
I wouldn't say it is common, but there are more and more architectural firms focusing on sustainability. We hired a local sustainable architecture firm when we decided to do our reno. They come through the house with a thermal camera and found huge heat loss out our old plaster walls on the 2nd floor. The solution was for contractors to remove siding, add external vapour barrier, insulation, and then we did wood siding on that. Attic was already well insulated. The results look great and and house is super comfy now. No more drafts.
- archi42 5y ago
  Can't reply to GP anymore, so I'll reply here. Over here it is actually pretty common, it's currently a huge pain to find contractors (plus they're getting more expensive by the day). We talked to a lot of people who about what they did, and I have two findings: 1. Sustainability (of materials) is usually a lesser factor, most people seem to care most about the energy saving and to some extent the improved comfort. 2. Most people do these improvements over a long time, e.g. do the roof when they can afford it, save some money (or pay off the loan) and do the windows,... - so that might take up to a decade to get the house up to a decent standard. Doing "all at once" is more rare, and those people are surprised when we tell them we plan to do as much as possible early on, as we can then earlier realize the potential savings. btw, I envy your draftfree house ^^"