Those poor Victorians! There was a very good reason for all those draws & liberty bodices, petticoats and thick skirts – their homes were like a leaky bucket and they were just freezing cold!
I know that because I’ve been just as cold in my Victorian house. If I felt perished in a centrally heated leaky bucket, they must have been at iceberg level.
Where to look for cold in Victorian home
There is plenty of free moving air in a Victorian home. If you live in one, I’m very sure you know that already! It comes from everywhere:
- from underneath the suspended floor
- through leaky window frames and poor quality glass
- round poorly fitting doors
- down chimneys
- through single brick walls
The upside is that they won’t have had any problem with condensation. In part because the air would never have been as warm as it gets now, but also because of the constant flow of fresh air into the house.
Victorian homes have survived remarkably well
Cold they may have been, but Victorian homes have lasted really well. That’s why so many of us are still living in them. Central heating has been our saviour. It’s enabled us to warm up the air and get some semblance of comfort. All of which was ‘good enough’ until sudden increases in energy prices.
Now it became urgent to explore ways of making these homes warm in a sustainable way – in support of the bank balance, but also in support of the environment.
The Victorian contribution to the climate crisis
21% of UK carbon emissions comes from leaky homes. So imagine the positive impact if we made our homes energy efficient.
A lot of people in the UK live in houses built before 1930 – all of which will need to be retrofitted if we are to deliver on our climate agreements. (In fact, every home built before 1990 needs to be retrofitted, but that’s another story)
Retrofitting allows us to live in these beautiful homes in the best way possible – feeling warm and comfortable, while using considerably less energy, thereby helping the environment.
A Victorian home must be breathable
But before we embark on retrofit, there is something we need to know:
Victorians built their homes to be breathable. It’s a misleading term – it actually means that the structure is vapour permeable – it allows low levels of moisture to move freely through the walls.
Modern buildings are not made to be breathable. This matters because most home improvement is done using modern methods, regardless of the age of the house.
Imagine moist air travelling through a vapour permeable brick, expecting to just keep going into the room on the other side. Instead it hits a vapour impermeable barrier of modern insulation made with petrochemicals. Given insulation will always be warmer than the brick it connects to, the vapour will automatically condense. If this continues unchecked the brick will start to degrade and eventually crumble.
So rule number one for owners of a Victorian home – stay breathable thorughout – up to and including the paint.
Areas for action in a Victorian building
Making a Victorian home sustainably warm is not a difficult job. It requires commitment and determination – mostly because the majority of builders don’t understand the breathable system. But the actual process is not that complicated, once you get your head around it.
The primary tasks are warming up the building and cutting out the uncontrolled air that comes in:
- from underneath the suspended floor – lift the floorboards and line between the joists with sustainable insulation, at a level above the air brick (Never, under any circumstances, cover the airbricks)
- through leaky window frames and poor quality glass – get rid of the gaps between the glass and the frame, plus the frame and the wall, preferably by adding in double or triple glazing.
- round poorly fitting doors – ensure the door fit closely in its space.
- down chimneys – if possible, remove the chimneys altogether – they let so much cold air into the house. If you still want to use them, find a way to block them up when not in use. (and don’t forget to remove the block before lighting a fire!)
- through single brick walls – add in either external wall insulation (EWI) or internal wall insulation (IWI).
At this point you’ll have a warm and cosy house. However, to achieve it, you’ve had to stop all the free flowing air the Victorians built in. You’ll be warmer, but you’ll also be very short of fresh air and there is nowhere for all the moisture to go. Some will move through the walls because they are breathable, but not enough to cope with the 14 litres of water a family produces every day!
Now it’s time for Ventilation
This is the least talked about aspect of energy efficiency, but one of the most important. It’s no good just cutting out the uncontrolled air. You have to replace it with controlled air. If you don’t the moisture you produce just by living will condense as soon as it hits a cold surface. And even the best insulated wall is colder that the surrounding air. So you end up swapping one problem for another.
The answer is to include heat recovery ventilation in your retrofit plan. (This applies to all homes, not just Victorian) Heat recovery because you don’t want to lose the heat you have so lovingly created, and ventilation because you need controlled air to make the environment in comfortable to live in (and condensation free)
This can be done via a whole house mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR) although this takes quite a lot of space so isn’t always easy to install in old houses. Or add in single room heat recovery units where needed – all you need is an outside wall.
At this point the house is breathable, insulated, airtight and ventilated.
Now it’s time for heating
The next step is to consider your heating system. All the work done will set you up nicely for an air source heat pump (ASHP) which pulls heat from the air and transfers it into your house.
If your home faces in the right direction, you can also add in photovoltaic (PV) solar panels. Ideal is you’re south facing. East/west will give you a reasonable return. North will add little value and not be worth the outlay.
Once you put ASHP and PV into the equation you’re heating your home in a fully sustainable way. Magic for the environment and your bank balance.
It’s all worth it
Having done all this in our 1901 Victorian home we are saving 75% of our energy usage. Our Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) has improved from D to B and the house is worth significantly more than the equivalent house in the same road. Not to mention that we are warm and comfortable.
You always know if someone lives in an eco home because they’ll ask you:
What’s the weather like outside?
For more information, Beginner’s Guide to Eco Renovation – an easy to read guide book in plain English that will help you understand the retrofit process and explain the terms you need in order to have a quality conversation with your builder.