Why did we give up on insulation?
Why did we give up on insulation?
I just watched some video about Yakutsk Siberia which is meant to be the coldest city in the world. Thought "Those poor bastards, wonder what they need to wear indoors when it is -40 outside."
Turns out a pissing tank top and PJ bottoms. We really need to start demanding better things in this country don't we?
I'm also reading a book about coal mining. All the unpaid labour, minimising wages and dodgy things the bosses did then still happens now. Now I'm not a tankie so don't get the wrong idea here. But why are we all okay living like this I don't get it? Why is the UK population so forgiving at living it shit conditions.
Also I'm going to jump in before anyone says no insulation keeps you cold in the summer. Insulation works both ways, it can keep heat out or it can keep heat in. It's better in the summer and in the winter.
Siberia video in question:
https://youtu.be/K0z7Avc9ZtY?si=_KTob2YYMn2HLwkv
Also I hope I havent broken any rules. I can't see any. This seems mostly news posts but I guess text posts are allowed? Sorry if not.
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I thought the material used in the US wood, gypsum, etc made insulation more essential compared to stone/brick construction often found in Europe.
Can’t recall where I heard that thing so take with a huge grain of salt
Depends a lot on the construction and age, but there's really no type of construction that doesn't need insulation.
There's a specific UK issue though. For some reason they're falling behind and have been for some time. F.i. The rest of northern Europe are using triple or quadruple pane windows, while many houses in UK still have single pane windows.
The windows alone being 2-3 generations behind code is only part of it. Loft insulation is also far behind:
Also older housing stock. My house is over 120 years old so that does limit done of what you can do to improve things. That said with decent windows and loft insulation there is something to be said for the thermal properties of a bunch of stone.
120 years ago is about the time they started doing double brick walls. Leaving air between the inner and outer brick walls was basically the first kind of insulation.
In the 1970s they figured out to put polystyrene beads in the space between the walls. This idea has recently been improved by better materials, so it's still possible to update the insulation on these old houses. Whether it's financially feasible is a different question.
Another method is to put more insulation on the inside, but this takes up space and early attempts in the 1950-1980s proved to do very little except creating a fire hazard. If a house has those old panels on the walls, it's probably better to remove them.
A neighbour of mine recently put very thick insulation on the outside of the house. Must have cost a fortune and it looks weird, but I guess it works really well. It also requires that all windows are moved, so it's probably easier to just build a new house.
So there a few options, but money is likely better spend on changing the roof, windows or the heat source.
Most houses in the UK have double glazing. Not all (somehow - if there isn't a grant for that there should be!) but by now most have upgraded.
Triple glazing appears to be getting started, I got a free upgrade to triple when I upgraded!
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In my town we're more concerned with intraday temp cycle, so we just add another layer of brick. Store heat during day and release at night. I'm 32 and have never used a central heating system once in my life, shit's awesome
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Bricks used in houses have big air gaps in the middle (which you can also insulate if you want to, both inside and outside.
That said you can do a lot with mass. I lived in a concrete building in a place with similar extremes and it did keep the heat very well, on account of those walls being half a meter thick. The glass windows were so bad at insulation by comparison that you could sometimes feel a breeze coming from the panels even when they were fully sealed just because the inside air was dozens of degrees warmer than the glass.
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Thanks. And, by wood and gypsum, I meant the construction material besides the insulation
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Some of them are. And no paper for a moisture/wind barrier too I think.
But those, I think, were less about insulation and warmth and more about ease of construction and plain exposure to the elements.
E.g. not great but good enough. But now we have wood, etc and insulation and I was musing that maybe the reason why stone/brick homes didn’t was because they worked well enough.
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As an American that has lived in a brick construction I can say that the drywall/insulation combo is significantly better. It's also possible that the brick apartment where I lived was just old and shit though.
It was old and shit. Brick houses can get amazing insulation. I know this, my family owns such a house in Romania where the temperatures can dip to -15 degrees in winter. Absolutely no problems inside.