Insulation

[Babnik]

Does leaving walls to stone make a big difference in heating bills? A lot of artisans assume that all walls will be insulated, and find it strange when we say we'd like to leave some walls bare. Anybody else have this reaction from Artisans?

 

[Iceni]

We got the opposite reaction from 2 architects who specialise in stone walled buildings. Our walls retain heat in winter and cool the space down in the summer. They also look wonderful as the stone has a good amount of huge quartz stones which shine.

[Babnik]

Well maybe we just talked to the wrong people. I know that it takes a while to heat the walls of an old farmhouse, but once warm they'll keep the heat in. I hope!!

Steve

[Ianhaycox]

We have had the same reaction from artisans. Insulate and cover everything.

The most sensible general advice we had was to insulate North walls and expose South walls is required. Also it's not necessary to expose the whole wall, you can cover some and blend in enduit/placo to the wall. I think it's a good comprimise.

Another option is to cover the lower third of the wall and expose the top 2/3s, then you can run your services behind the covering.

[pjm]

Well, we always recommend to insulate the outside walls, and make a feature of the internal stone walls.  Of course all depends on the conditions of the walls to start with?

[Kittycat]

Just like to add a thought, which may be of interest to some. In our village, due to the proximity of two historic monuments, the architect de batiments de france has decreed that houses are not to be stripped of render with a view to repointing & leaving the cleaned-up stone work on show.

We couldn't believe this initially, but has been proved to be the case, to the expense of our neighbours. They've had to re-render the front of their house to put it back to the condition it was in before they started work! The only plausible argument I've heard is that the render is a protective coat, which stops the stone work becoming weather damaged. I think this is a bit of a weak argument, I'm sure many of these houses would have been left as exposed stone originally & the render was applied later as a quicker/cheaper maintenance option to repointing.

There, I've had my say & hope it wasn't too 'off-topic' and that someone finds it useful.

best wishes