Last week we changed Paul's filters for the first time, after four months use. It looks like we should have done it before - they were black, and grey (intake and exhaust respectively). Admittedly there's been finishing work going on, worsening the exhaust condition, but that's a lot of black stuff on the intake filter, otherwise coming in through windows.
Interesting that our power consumption has more than halved this week. Need to keep an eye on that.
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The second air-test was carried out last week with the help of Enhabit. The good news is that the results were significantly better than the first attempt: the not so good news is they were not quite good enough. We are still aiming for EnerPHit, (less than or equal to 1.0 air change/hr at 50Pa).
If the loft volume is taken into account we managed an average 1.45 air change/hr at 50Pa, and if the loft is excluded it drops to 1.70. There is ongoing discussion with the certifier about which is correct, but since the loft is within the air-tight line this would seem the correct approach to us. Clearly the bigger the volume the better the result. Many areas of air-leakage were identified during the test, but the main culprit seems to be where the new build extension meets the existing house. Lesson learnt: don't rely on a single line of defence. Tape at every opportunity. The insulation has been rendered and rather fine it's looking too. Starting with a cement based adhesive mortar, followed by glassfibre mesh, primer and then the trowelled silicon 'smooth' render finish coat, actually 1.5mm particle size. Very light grey.
We're impatient to have the scaffold down, then we can see how it really looks. |
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Russel and Anna Hayden
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