Thermal comfort in older houses

Thank you all for coming. Here are some downloads related to the presentations.

Read Nicola's blog post on the evening here.

Date: Tuesday 17th June 2014
Time: 7.30-9.00pm
Venue: Friends Meeting House, Jesus Lane, CB5 8BA
Free entry, donations welcome, no need to book
For further information, please contact Nicola Terry.

Read about why we chose this topic for our forum.
Find out more about Green Deal grants or advice about energy saving at home

Our homes have lovely features we don't want to lose, so can we work around them?

In the meantime, take a look at our advice pages about Insulating your home and Draughts and Ventilation

Homes that were built before the days of central heating were not designed to deliver the level of cosy warm comfort that we now expect. Heating them can be very expensive.

One way to lower the bills is to insulate the walls and roof. Getting grants for insulation and other energy saving measures is now easier than it has been - many Cambridge residents will benefit from the £5.7 million Green Deal Communities funding that Cambridgeshire has been given. Also, from June there are grants including up to £6000 for solid wall insulation from the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund - see our Green Deal advice page. However, how much can you insulate without losing the little features you love - the pediments on doors and windows, coloured lights, cornicing and period skirting boards, detailing around windows ...?

In any case, insulation (either internal or external) is not a panacea. Inappropriate choice of materials, poor design, careless workmanship or inadequate ventilation can cause condensation leading to damp and mould. Do you need to worry? What do you need to look out for?

In this forum we will have experts who can help explain:

  • when and how insulation can be used safely
  • other measures you can take and how much difference they will make

Here to explain and answer your questions we have:
Andrew Mitchell Natural Building Technologies (standing in for Jason Dorks, thanks Andy)
Jim Ross Cambridge Architectural Research
Peter Pope with first hand experience of the Green Deal with Action on Energy
Patrick O'Donohoe with first hand recent experience of retrofit including external wall insulation
There will also be a representative from Action on Energy to say a few words and answer questions on the Green Deal grants available.

Program (approx): 7.05pm Doors open.
7.30pm Introductory presentations: Insulation, Windows, Finance, Experiences
8.35pm Your questions.
9.00pm Close

Download a poster for this event here (2.2 Mb jpg) or a leaflet here (2.2 Mb pdf)

Previous forums run by the energy group include:

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