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Don't old UK full home renovations often take the house down to its studs? What would be limiting them from insulating well enough, or is just that full renovat

Don't old UK full home renovations often take the house down to its studs? What would be limiting them from insulating well enough, or is just that full renovations are too expensive?

tialaramex 2y ago
Most UK homes are built with brick or stone outer walls, and a big problem for heat insulation will be those walls. So that's a hell of a renovation, it's practically just tearing the house down and starting over, which is not a thing. If you tore the bricks off my home, you'd see a thick layer of insulation, but this place was built in the 21st century and the actual structural loads are internal - floors are cantilevered off the lift shaft in the core while the bricks on the outside are mostly decorative. However if you tried to tear the bricks off my mother's 100+ year old house you'll tear the building down, the loads travel through that brick. She spends more on utilities in a month than I spend in a year.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  I've been watching some renovations in the UK, which I find really interesting, but I forgot that most homes are built out of brick and "tearing them down to the studs" really isn't possible. I guess the same is true with concrete (rather than brick) homes in Southern China (or why my mother-in law doesn't have heat in the winter and why it is so bloody cold to visit). They deal with that though by using things like Kotatsus, which I don't think westerners would find very appealing.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    The only viable solution for those is effectively building an inner insulated shell in each room, which does work but loses interior space. My grandmother lived most of her life in a poorly insulated brick terraced house with no central heating - every day she'd get up and light a coal fire in the grate. A lifestyle that belonged more to the 1890s than the 1990s.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      Southern China has no central heating either. Old Chinese farm houses in the north still have coal, I stayed at an urban house in Tianjin in 1999 that still used coal honeycombs for heating. The kotatsu was invented in Japan to provide a space to heat individuals, so it’s kind of like that. You’ll still find it in use today.

Don't old UK full home renovations often take the house down to its studs? What would be limiting them from insulating well enough, or is just that full renovations are too expensive?

tialaramex 2y ago

Most UK homes are built with brick or stone outer walls, and a big problem for heat insulation will be those walls. So that's a hell of a renovation, it's practically just tearing the house down and starting over, which is not a thing. If you tore the bricks off my home, you'd see a thick layer of insulation, but this place was built in the 21st century and the actual structural loads are internal - floors are cantilevered off the lift shaft in the core while the bricks on the outside are mostly decorative. However if you tried to tear the bricks off my mother's 100+ year old house you'll tear the building down, the loads travel through that brick. She spends more on utilities in a month than I spend in a year.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
I've been watching some renovations in the UK, which I find really interesting, but I forgot that most homes are built out of brick and "tearing them down to the studs" really isn't possible. I guess the same is true with concrete (rather than brick) homes in Southern China (or why my mother-in law doesn't have heat in the winter and why it is so bloody cold to visit). They deal with that though by using things like Kotatsus, which I don't think westerners would find very appealing.
- pjc50 2y ago
  The only viable solution for those is effectively building an inner insulated shell in each room, which does work but loses interior space. My grandmother lived most of her life in a poorly insulated brick terraced house with no central heating - every day she'd get up and light a coal fire in the grate. A lifestyle that belonged more to the 1890s than the 1990s.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Southern China has no central heating either. Old Chinese farm houses in the north still have coal, I stayed at an urban house in Tianjin in 1999 that still used coal honeycombs for heating. The kotatsu was invented in Japan to provide a space to heat individuals, so it’s kind of like that. You’ll still find it in use today.