|  | The Ecohome : Ground floor living room
In a building with no cavity walls there are two possible ways to insulate the external walls - inside or outside. Gil and Penney decided that for the front elevation of the house internal insulation would be easier to detail while allowing the external brick appearance to remain, in keeping with the street.
The material chosen was Knauf dry-lining board which although synthetic has a much higher performance. Two layers of 52.5mm boards (one layer around the reveals) were securely fixed to the wall with dabs of resin and mechanical fixings to achieve insulation levels equivalent to 150mm of rockwool. The returns at each corner were included to allow an overlap with future insulation on the opposite faces of those walls.
This overlap is used where insulation is discontinuous, to reduce the 'cold bridge' effect, which can reduce the effectiveness of the insulation and lead to localised condensation problems. The dry-lining was then plastered with ordinary gypsum. The room was then painted using white emulsion, a low VOC paint - this is not the 'greenest' paint that could have been used.
The window sills and hearth were finished with hand-made, English tiles with a plain glaze in a deep cobalt blue, to give the room a clean, Mediterranean calm. The low cost aluminium blinds were chosen to add to the sleek finish.
The skirtings, architraves and door were taken away and dipped, to remove the paint. The off-site use of strong paint-stripping chemicals was weighed up against the environmental disadvantages of discarding and replacing those elements with new materials.
The floors were cleaned, sanded, mended and coated with a natural hard-wax oil by OS Colour as used in the new British Airways headquarters.
Installation of the double glazed PVCu windows by the previous owner was a mixed blessing. They replaced old single glazed sash windows which would have been unacceptably draughty and cold (but which could have been refurbished and upgraded).
The fact that double glazed units were installed meant that not all the windows had to be replaced at once, giving a bit of breathing space to save up the money to eventually replace all the plastic windows, with high quality, sustainably produced wooden double glazed windows with low emissivity coating and gas fill.
The blinds will be augmented with thermally lined fabric blinds to increase night time insulation.
The original cornice, damaged by the installation of the dry-lining, will be made good by a local specialist. Continue the tour >> |
