Wall Insulating in Spain

I bought an Atico in Formentera Del last September to live in permamantly and found it very cold in Jan and Feb I am considering having the exterior wal fitted with insulating boards as seen on the energy saving trusts website, am I right in thinking that the room should be more comfortable keeping the heat in the room in winter and out in the summer? I found it very hard to keep any heat in the room. Does anyone have any ideas about these? Carolyn

 Which way does it face?  If it faces South, then ideally in winter you want to invite sunlight in during the day. With plenty of mass to absorb it - eg thick walls inside the property as well as outside facing the sun. In summer you ought to try and keep the sun out -eg shutters, blinds. The roof is important as unless very well insulated it will let warmth escape during winter and fry you in summer.

I don't know the practicalities of facing in other directions. Some apartments look lovely and cool in streets running north/south as they don't get to face the brunt of the sun - but might be miserable in winter. Facing north would be cool in summer but freezing in winter. 

That said, insulation is always good - the more the merrier.

Thanks for replying the property faces west, I have a large bacony which has sunshine on from around 11.00am in the summer until the sun sets and in the winter it is from 1.00pm until sun set, I thought this would help with the place being warm in the winter, I have blinds and also bought thermal curtains for the winter I close them as soon as the sun goes down, I have had underfloor heating put in which is good the room does get warm but I noticed the warms are always cold and thought the panels would help to keep the warmth in, it is a large room 19.68m2. I have had the heated panels put in the 2 bedrooms and heated towel rails in the bathrooms, I am just concerned that it will cost alot to run as I felt the heat was escaping through the walls. I am just not sure!!

All insulation is good economy and you must need it by your complaint.

Typical Spanish construction gives you very little - roof first - walls and aspect next, including windows - floor last.

with ever increasing energy costs you cannot have too much - go for it - thickest where most needed.

Regards

Norman

 What sort of ceiling, roof do you have? How thick is it, including insulation? What is next door and behind your property, are your walls shared with the properties on either side, behind, etc? If you have long afternoon sun, I'd guess you are losing heat through your roof. 

Thank you so much!!! On one side I have my neighbours kitchen and the other is an empty apartment, I don't know about the roof I have to go to the managent office and will find out as I have no access. Is there any chance I could call and speak to you about this? Carolyn

External walls are best insulated from the outside. This is because the heated mass (the wall) helps to store the heat. Quality double glazing helps to allow heat in but prevents heat escaping. Some roofs have sand and cement, then plaster, directly onto the roof beams and infill. Some have a solid plaster suspended ceiling. If you have the later, sprayed, recicled newspaper or foam, are good insulators. If there is a property below you, there is very little that you can do (more than you already have) but you will already gain from the insulation given by the property below you.

 External walls are best insulated from the outside. 

hi abyss. i'm not sure one can ever hope to get this right. in winter, during the sunny day, you want to walls to soak up as much heat as possible - and insulating them on the outside would seem to prevent this. but then, during the summer, you want the walls, which have soaked up the nightime cold, to retain that cold - and insulating them on the outside would be useful.

we have a small south facing property with 600mm thick walls and double glazed windows with shutters. in summer we keep the place pretty closed up in semi darkness during the day and wide open at night to let in the cool air. in winter we do the opposite, open to the sun during the day and shut up at night. we have 2 problems. the west facing wall, which has no windows, soaks up so much heat in the afternoon. our only solution to this is to grow trees and try to keep it shaded. the bigger problem is that we had a height restriction when we did the original renovation - and this means we have a thin roof - wooden boards on the inside, then a 100mm of polystyrene, then plastic sheeting, then tiles on the outside. so the house absorbs too much heat during the day during summer, and conversely we lose our heat out through the roof in winter. i'd prefer to have at least a metre of insulation on the roof - but we weren't allowed to raise the roof by that much.

chiv51 - i sent you a pm.

I am always wary of adding insulation to walls as it can alter the point in the structure at which moisture condenses.  My preference would to use shade as your problem seems to be direct sunlight rather than the ambient temperature (in summer anyway), although previous posters have given the best advice if that's the route you go down.  We havea place in the same area, but a ground floor apartment, which only has two external walls and faces east.  In winter the place is freezing, even though the walls consist of a Polystyrene insulated block, it's very poor by northern European standards.  Lots of people in the area try to keep warm by reducing ventilation, which is really bad, because the hot air inside the house can hold more moisture than the cold air outside and the dew point (temperature at which water condenses) is right against the cold walls and windows.  Please ensure that ventilation is maintained to preven excessive moisture build up.

M.

I am afraid you cannot retain heat or cold with insulation you merely reduce the transmission thereof of the heat until balance is reached.

Radiated heat from the sun can be absorbed or reflected away to some extent according to the efficiency of the materials used.

Shade and wind chill can assist or the reverse depending on the objective.

But to conserve your energy costs the more insulation the better whether inside or out.

Regards

Norman

 as an aside, my wife has a solution to our hot roof, although i'm not sure it's a very green one. we drilled  a powerful 100m borehole when we bought the place,  so for an hour each evening she  dumps about 15000 litres of  water onto the roof. the steam hisses and rises like a volcano - but after ten minutes the bone dry tiles and lime walls start to stay damp and slowly the house and immediate surroundings cool down....cooler and cooler...until it's time to pull a couple of loungers onto the stoep....and open a bottle of something. it probably ticks off the locals who have 3m wells and are always running out of water, but you can't please everyone.

GuyT, I hope you are joking...

sounds like a good remedy - bit dramatic - couldn't you slow it down somewhat and perhaps even share with the neighbours or don't they deserve it?

Regards

Norman

norman - well, that's what does the business, three litres a second for about an hour. it's like being in africa after a rainstorm - wonderful smell. we're on 3 ha and so neighbours is a relative term. i wouldn't want to go into the socialised water reticulation business, i leave that to the tajo basin water authority, or whatever they're called. i figure some people use their water to irrigate golf courses, i use mine to wet my roof. i am exploring a high pressure fogging system which a friend of mine who owns our local nursery recommends. for a couple of thousand euros one can cover one's house and patio with foggers. they use relatively little water but one has the cost of running the pump - it shouldn't be much, they are quite small. one advantage of living at the foot of a granite mountain range (gredos) is that the aquifer is like purified water, it's had all the minerals, etc filtered out. a bit boring to drink but no deposits to clog nozzles. needs must. 

Guy,

again sounds good but how is the water delivered?

you would need a powerful pumping system to get it up from 100 meteres surely?

would make the little fogging pump seem economic, or am I missing the point.

I sometimes wish some of my neighbours and their indisciplined children were a couple of hundred metres away, in fact the more I think about the better it gets - good luck

Norman

1 Kw of photovoltaic panels to lift the water. while the borehole is 100m, the water level  normally rises quite close to the surface, maybe 20m or so. there is just enough energy left in the sun to work the thing until about 7.30 pm this time of the year. at all times we retain 5000 litres in a plastic tank at a high point on the property and then use gravity for our domestic supply. i'd like to build a decent reservoir if/when i have spare cash then i could just fill it during daylight. i forgot to say, when wifey dumps water on the roof and everything goes steamy and sizzles - we get birds coming from miles away to sit in the trees around the house and enjoy the cool. lovely to watch and hear them sing but they tend to leave a mess.

Hello Guy,

sounds dreamy - enjoy

Norman

In response to "chive51/Carolyn" re: exterior wall insulation . A very good solution is   the Parex system of polystyrene boards  secured to the existing wall, adhesive ,mesh and final coat of acrylic coloured render.

The finished coat has a permanent colour and is guaranteed for 20 years . In the UK walls are insulated with up to 125 mm of insulation , but in Spain they say that 50mm is sufficient.

One of the problems encountered with the exterior wall insulation is cold bridging at  the window and door reveals . The system in Spain of fitting the windows flush with the exterior wall eliminates this problem.

www.parex.com

This is an expensive solution , but if you have substantial heat loss through external walls  it would be a cost effective remedy.

 As for the damp wall problem, we had that in our underground trastero.  We had a contractor apply a paint-like product to the walls in 3 coats.  We never again saw a damp spot on the wall even after 3 years.  We also run a dehumidifier in that room but it would be too small for an entire house and you would need a way to automatically empty it if no one is checking on or ventilating your home in winter.