Results
Have all our efforts been worthwhile?
In the main the answer is a resounding Yes!
When we first moved in the energy usage was very high. Modeling the house as bought with DEAP, which is the Irish version of the UK's SAP energy assessment standard (the two are almost identical with the exception that the DEAP software is free - see http://www.seai.ie/Your_Building/EPBD/DEAP/ ) gave an annual gas usage of nearly 28,000khw per year. This aligns fairly closely with the previous owners bills.The breakdown of energy usage can be seen in the graph below in blue.
We then modeled the house with all of our improvements as off the end of 2012 (green in the graph). This predicted a near two thirds reduction in gas required for space heating and a halving in that used for water heating.
Comparing the modeled results with the actual consumption figures for 2012 (in yellow) showed that we actually managed slightly lower consumption figures for the space heating and we were pretty much bang on predicted consumption for hot water. Not bad for a 120 year old house!
I'm still crunching all the figures and will update this page with some further breakdowns once I have a chance.
In the main the answer is a resounding Yes!
When we first moved in the energy usage was very high. Modeling the house as bought with DEAP, which is the Irish version of the UK's SAP energy assessment standard (the two are almost identical with the exception that the DEAP software is free - see http://www.seai.ie/Your_Building/EPBD/DEAP/ ) gave an annual gas usage of nearly 28,000khw per year. This aligns fairly closely with the previous owners bills.The breakdown of energy usage can be seen in the graph below in blue.
We then modeled the house with all of our improvements as off the end of 2012 (green in the graph). This predicted a near two thirds reduction in gas required for space heating and a halving in that used for water heating.
Comparing the modeled results with the actual consumption figures for 2012 (in yellow) showed that we actually managed slightly lower consumption figures for the space heating and we were pretty much bang on predicted consumption for hot water. Not bad for a 120 year old house!
I'm still crunching all the figures and will update this page with some further breakdowns once I have a chance.
