# Thermal insulation in your home



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Soon (this month) we'll be moving into a brand new house, that meets the latest standards of thermal insulation: quadruple glazing and designed for zero energy requirement. Happily all the windows do have ventilation vents, otherwise I would feel a bit scary... To the house also belong solar panels, but these will be installed on the barns of a nearby farmer.
So how does your present reality of home insulation look like & what are your thoughts about the 21 century way of life with self-sufficiency in energy need etc.?


----------



## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

We live in a farmhouse built in 1891. The outside walls are about 40 cm thick and the rooms are low to avoid needlessly heating upper parts of the room that would contain no heads anyway. The house is heated entirely by wood from a central furnace in the living-room. Cooling - a rare event - is performed by opening the window.


----------



## Guest (Apr 6, 2015)

Kivimees said:


> We live in a farmhouse built in 1891. The outside walls are about 40 cm thick and the rooms are low to avoid needlessly heating upper parts of the room that would contain no heads anyway. The house is heated entirely by wood from a central furnace in the living-room. Cooling - a rare event - is performed by opening the window.


Hey, as long as there's Wi-Fi!


----------



## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I also live in a wooden house that was built more then a hundred years ago (a deconsecrated baptist church as I have told before), completely ecological by any standard, all of the wood most probably from the local (pine) forest and all the walls insulated with wood shavings, relaid the roof (with locally made terracotta tiles) about 15 years ago and added some extra insulation to the roof, 12 inches of Finnish Flaxen fibre insulation (the only natural fibre insulation I could get a hold of at the time).. The house has "natural ventilation" (no plastic membranes) has geothermal heating and the little electricity I use comes from wind power (owing shares in one of the local wind parks).

Perhaps not Zero energy, but very healthy! (Have WiFi!)

/ptr


----------



## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

nathanb said:


> Hey, as long as there's Wi-Fi!


Indeed! Although the Wi-Fi came somewhat after the house was built.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

We live in a 17th century national monument - we are not even allowed to change the windows to double glass.


----------



## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

ptr said:


> ... has geothermal heating ...
> 
> /ptr


This is something I would like as well. Unfortunately, the cost of installation with respect to our meager incomes makes it unviable.

Hopefully, the next generation of Kivimees will have better opportunities.


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

TxllxT said:


> So how does your present reality of home insulation look like & what are your thoughts about the 21 century way of life with self-sufficiency in energy need etc.?


I am all for 21st Century technology and I am still waiting for the government to come in and retrofit my house.


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Concrete walls, single glass windows and old-time "batteries" (water heaters) here, and as soon as the temps get over plus ten I sleep with windows open. Not ecological whatsoever.


----------



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Two days ago we moved / were moved to our brand new home on the same island in the North of Holland. It is a vicarage (so not our property) and I think it is something quite special nowadays... The old vicarage in our village dates back to the 1840s, it was huge & very romantic (just like in the Bronte novels), but now for example we enjoy a new shower with floor heating in the big bathroom, something we didn't even dream of. Just imagine how quickly everything dries up! Such details of living really improve the quality of daily life. The old vicarage was sold to a Michelin star cook & hotelier, who will have to cope with a house that hasn't got hardly any insulation, that instead does have all kinds of impracticalities, like having to mow the extensive lawn of the old vicarage garden... We noticed the cook/hotelier doesn't find time to keep the garden in shape. We thank him for having provided the money from which two houses + a Church community centre were build.


----------

