mr-squirrel
Member
- Messages
- 27
- Location
- Perthshire, Scotland
Hi there,
I decided to invest in a thermal camera and thought you might find the exploration of my completley un-important rubble stone pesant's cottage interesting. I'm the scientific type and want to make sure any changes i make are having a positive impact. I like to measure what i've done is actually doing what i intended it to.
Here we have a plasterboard stud wall with no insulation, the loft has some insulation. Simply cutting and fitting the existing insulation correctly has made a noticable difference. Making the best of what i have for now as these rooms will be getting torn apart and rebuilt in due course. The small blob to the right is some old loft insulation that has fallen down the back of the wall.
So an important lesson - even a small amount of insulation makes a big difference, though it must be fitted correctly. In fact, snug fitting insulation is more important than a better grade of insulation fitted badly. In a modern house you would normally expect to see the timbers appearing colder than the bays in between as the timbers are cold bridging. However here it's the other way round because there is no insulation in the bays at all! The dark strip on the roof is an un-insulated portion where a beam is in the way, have not yet bothered to fill up the gap.
This is an old lath & plaster internal wall, incredible heat leakage into the loft space.
A modern flat roof extension with a "warm" roof. This means the insulation is above the joists - what the regs called for at the time. Ventillation is encouraged across the roof, however as there is only 12.5mm plasterboard between the room and ventillated cavity this causes a noticeable heat loss. The walls here are insulated timber frame.
But the stove is fighting back against heat loss:
And after all that it's time for a cup of tea:
Looking at the world in a whole new way now, very interesting. There are lots of traps with thermal imaging and a lot of science involved if you want to make accurate measurements however, i'm only really interested in differences across the scene, not accurate measurement. So many uses though, like determining where condensation might form etc.
It is quite scary when you look up your hallway and see your own footprints across the floor!
More to follow soon.
Mark.
I decided to invest in a thermal camera and thought you might find the exploration of my completley un-important rubble stone pesant's cottage interesting. I'm the scientific type and want to make sure any changes i make are having a positive impact. I like to measure what i've done is actually doing what i intended it to.
Here we have a plasterboard stud wall with no insulation, the loft has some insulation. Simply cutting and fitting the existing insulation correctly has made a noticable difference. Making the best of what i have for now as these rooms will be getting torn apart and rebuilt in due course. The small blob to the right is some old loft insulation that has fallen down the back of the wall.
So an important lesson - even a small amount of insulation makes a big difference, though it must be fitted correctly. In fact, snug fitting insulation is more important than a better grade of insulation fitted badly. In a modern house you would normally expect to see the timbers appearing colder than the bays in between as the timbers are cold bridging. However here it's the other way round because there is no insulation in the bays at all! The dark strip on the roof is an un-insulated portion where a beam is in the way, have not yet bothered to fill up the gap.
This is an old lath & plaster internal wall, incredible heat leakage into the loft space.
A modern flat roof extension with a "warm" roof. This means the insulation is above the joists - what the regs called for at the time. Ventillation is encouraged across the roof, however as there is only 12.5mm plasterboard between the room and ventillated cavity this causes a noticeable heat loss. The walls here are insulated timber frame.
But the stove is fighting back against heat loss:
And after all that it's time for a cup of tea:
Looking at the world in a whole new way now, very interesting. There are lots of traps with thermal imaging and a lot of science involved if you want to make accurate measurements however, i'm only really interested in differences across the scene, not accurate measurement. So many uses though, like determining where condensation might form etc.
It is quite scary when you look up your hallway and see your own footprints across the floor!
More to follow soon.
Mark.