Jan 5, 2022·edited Jan 5, 2022Liked by Brian Potter
I am very skeptical of the exterior wall/insulation choices. Modern living temperatures are substantially higher than those in medieval buildings, leading to increased energy loss and higher water saturation.
Wherever you have a warm, moist living interior and an exterior at freezing temperatures, water will tend to migrate into the exterior. If the walls are porous and the dew layer falls inside your brickwork, that's a very bad situation where freeze and thaw cycles over days and seasons will damage the masonry. Maybe not be substantial in a place like London, where freezing cycles are relatively rare, but a fundamental drawback in many places of the inhabited Northern hemisphere.
The energy consumption of the building cannot be ignored, and past trends, in a Europe or US densely covered in trees, cannot be extrapolated into the future. It's good that we have fireplaces as a fallback, but the building should also have extremely high thermal insulation, close to passive house standards, made of very hardy materials like AAC. If the future will be energy rich, it won't matter, but we don't see that yet.
Maybe try something like the free online tool Ubakus to figure out a better exterior wall choice from both the humidity and energy waste aspects.
I am very skeptical of the exterior wall/insulation choices. Modern living temperatures are substantially higher than those in medieval buildings, leading to increased energy loss and higher water saturation.
Wherever you have a warm, moist living interior and an exterior at freezing temperatures, water will tend to migrate into the exterior. If the walls are porous and the dew layer falls inside your brickwork, that's a very bad situation where freeze and thaw cycles over days and seasons will damage the masonry. Maybe not be substantial in a place like London, where freezing cycles are relatively rare, but a fundamental drawback in many places of the inhabited Northern hemisphere.
The energy consumption of the building cannot be ignored, and past trends, in a Europe or US densely covered in trees, cannot be extrapolated into the future. It's good that we have fireplaces as a fallback, but the building should also have extremely high thermal insulation, close to passive house standards, made of very hardy materials like AAC. If the future will be energy rich, it won't matter, but we don't see that yet.
Maybe try something like the free online tool Ubakus to figure out a better exterior wall choice from both the humidity and energy waste aspects.