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The kitchen in our house gets very cold in winter, noticeably colder than the rest of the house. There's a lot of glass but it looks new-ish and I'm not sure how much the windows are contributing to the heat loss. I'm thinking about getting someone in to have a look and give us some pointers on improvements but I'm not sure who that should be. Do I just want a builder? Or are there other people out there a bit more specialised in energy efficiency-type advice and maybe a step removed from doing the work?Â
You can use a thermal imageing camera or work out the resistance of each surface of your kitchen.
https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/article/thermal-conductivity-r-values-and-u-values-simplified/
you can work out the R value from the type of material and thickness:
https://www.buyinsulationonline.co.uk/blog/thermal-insulation-materials-a-brief-guide
https://www.insulationadvice.co.uk/ti-r-values
(the triple glazing figure in the table is wrong)
A typical UK cavity wall with say polystyrene beads in the cavity is around R=1.5. Typical modern double glazing is uW 1.3 and triple uW 1.0. (the smaller the uW the better, the bigger the R the better) Doors with polyurethane core are similar to good windows. There will be thermal bridges around the doors and windows in almost all UK homes.
If you want a cosy house the wall needs to be better than R = 4, the ceiling R = 8 and the floor R = 4. An example I'm familiar with:
Walls are R 1.2 bricks then there's 120mm of wood fibre insulation R 3.2 and 20mm of wood panelling R 0.2. The total is R 4.6.
Under floor is 140mm of polyurethane  R 7
Roof is R 8.6.
That's really cosy in Winter and cool in Summer.Â
So some questions:
What are your walls - solid brick or cavity or something else? How thick and build year?
What's in the cieling/roof.
What's under the floor? A sanitary space, solid ground, insulation?
What's the outside door?Â
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I'd recommend getting hold of a FLIR thermal imaging camera and wave it around the room on a cold day. It will show draughts and cold spots clearly, and then you can decide what to do about it.
For us, we used it to discover that the dot and dab plasterboard on one wall was completely unsealed, so cold air was getting between the wall and plasterboard. Squiting some expanding foam in the right places sorted it, but we never would have found the problem and the places which needed sealing otherwise. That alone made a huge difference. We also found which corners of which windows weren't sealing correctly when closed.
You will probably intend to sell the camera on once you are done with it, but friends and family will keep wanting to borrow it, and it will keep on coming in handy for other random tasks.
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If you with octopus, they have a scheme where you can borrow a thermal camera
If you with octopus, they have a scheme where you can borrow a thermal camera
I'd forgotten they offered that, signed up to the waiting list for this winter.