Author: Phil Beardmore

Free solar thermal panels

Posted on by Phil Beardmore

 

Energy confidence

 

 

 

I am giving away 4 square metres of solar thermal panels.  They were in working order when removed from my roof in April 2025 to make way for new solar equipment.

 

The solar thermal panels were installed by Balsall Heath Housing Coop in 2005.  They give you hot water from solar heat.  In my house this was used to pre-heat water for a hot water cylinder, for baths, hand-washing, washing-up.  They could also be used to pre-heat hot water in Spring and Autumn for a heating systems for a gas boiler or heat pump

 

The equipment consists of 2 x solar thermal collector panels with an area of 4 square metres.  At the time of installation they were predicted to give 1200 kWh of heat during the course of a 12-month period, i.e. approximately half of the house’s demand for domestic hot water.  For 20 years, they gave me pretty much all of my domestic hot water between April and October and I rarely had to use any gas to heat the cylinder during this time.  Between October and April they gave me some of my domestic hot water and I had to use the gas boiler a few times a week to get the water up to the required temperature.

 

I was very happy with the solar thermal panels but the opportunity came along to replace them with a more modern and versatile solar application and so I am giving them away free to a good home.

 

You will need a van and two people to take them with you (currently stored in my garden), a plumber, pipework, a pump, controls, and a hot water cylinder to connect them to.

 

If interested then please use the contact form to get in touch.  

 

Photo is of the solar panels on my roof. 

 

The energy saving makeover of my house is finished, and it’s fab!  

Posted on by Phil Beardmore

 

Energy confidence

The energy saving makeover of my house is finished, and it’s fab!  

 

I live in an Edwardian end-terraced house in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, which is having major energy efficiency improvements.  My house is part of Balsall Heath Housing Cooperative, a small resident-controlled coop with 77 homes.  Mine is one of 22 older homes that’s part of the project.  The larger measures are being funded by the Coop from its own financial reserves, and part funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. I am paying for and installing some of the smaller measures myself.

 

It’s been hard work with many ups and downs, which you can hear about in this “warts and all” Green Doors webinar recording.  I have insulation to the floors, walls, as well as existing loft insulation, plus smart heating controls, solar with battery and hot water diverter, and airtightness measures.  You can hear about all this in the recording.  Click here for more posts on my house. Click here for a PowerPoint presentation .

 

At the time of writing we haven’t had the heating on as it’s mild and the whole-house insulation seems to be working.  The EPC rating has risen to 89 B, which makes it the highest rated house of this type in this postcode area.  I actually believe it should be slightly higher as the EPC has missed out some of the smaller improvements.  More importantly, I have forecast that the greenhouse gas emissions from the house will decrease by 60% by 2030, and is heat pump ready.  We have also solved some issues of condensation damp.  Everything that’s been done in my house is replicable to the thousands of similar homes in Birmingham, this isn’t a demonstration project or a vanity project.  

 

It’s been hard work but well worth it!  Thank you to Balsall Heath Housing Coop management committee, especially Tony the Chair who was round here every day to make sure it was done properly, and our project manager Richard Bubb, and to the people at the WMCA for their support, and to the guys who worked on the house, most of whom did their very best, in many cases picking up after mistakes were made by others who ran away.

 

In the Spring of 2026 I will post updates of the impact of the retrofit one year on, and one winter on, from the extensive monitoring I am doing thanks to the smart technology at my fingertips.  Subscribe here.

How I worked with the installer to design under-floor insulation in my front room

Posted on by Phil Beardmore
under-floor insulation

 

Energy confidence

 

I live in a terraced house in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, which is having major energy efficiency improvements.  My house is part of Balsall Heath Housing Cooperative, a small resident-controlled coop with 77 homes.  Mine is one of 22 older homes that’s part of the project.  The larger measures are being funded by the Coop (part funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund) and installed by the Coop’s contractors, I am paying for and installing some of the smaller measures myself.

 

My front room has a suspended timber floor.  I did a heat loss calculation on my house, which showed major heat loss through this floor.  The Coop appointed one of its regular contractors, L Daniels, to undertake the insulation.

 

Following a conversation with the contractor, it was agreed that the solution was:

 

  1. Risk assess the adequacy of the existing under-floor ventilation, and the condition of the floorboards, joists and foundations, to make sure there was no disrepair, as it’s not safe to insulate if ventilation is inadequate or if there is disrepair to the building fabric 
  2. Pro Clima membrane – an air tightness and vapour control membrane – immediately below the floorboards.  Pro Clima is miraculous – it reduces unwanted movement of air, therefore reducing draughts, and allows airborne moisture to pass through it, reducing the risk of condensation damaging the floorboards, joists and foundations.  I like to think of it as like the materials that they make professional athletes gear, or spacesuits from – it stops heat from moving where you don’t want it to move, and allows the building fabric to sweat moisture.
  3. Airtightness tape to seal the gaps where the floorboards meet the external walls under the floor (it’s an end terrace).
  4. Rigid Recticell insulation batts between the joists to a depth of 100mm.
  5. This leaves a gap below the insulation of at least 150mm for ventilation.

 

This complies with good practice guidelines on suspended timber floor insulation published by the government.  

 

I do not have any hot water pipework going under this floor, as most people do where there’s a suspended timber floor.  If there is hot water pipework under the floor, then under-floor insulation is also a good opportunity to insulate the under-floor pipework.

 

It was important to do under-floor insulation before the front room has internal wall insulation, which is due to happen by the end of March 2025.

 

The impact of the under-floor insulation was immediate, it immediately feels warmer, and you don’t get the ‘warm head cold feet’ feeling that you get with an uninsulated floor. I used an infrared thermometer on the floor before and after and it shows that the insulated floor is warmer than before.

 I have calculated the predicted energy and carbon savings from the insulation.  It’s important to note that the fuel bills savings are expected to be modest, and that under-floor insulation is primarily a thermal comfort measure, as part of a whole-house package of measures to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the house.  I will be monitoring the energy and carbon savings over the next 12 months and will publish them on here

 

I removed the existing laminate floor to enable the under-floor insulation to happen.  The laminate was 25 years old and quite worn.   Next step is a new floor covering, I have decided to go for bamboo flooring as it has lower environmental impact and I am told by others who have it, that it’s easy to fit.  I’ve been watching videos about how to achieve a herringbone effect with bamboo flooring!

 

One interesting feature of this process has been the relationship between floor insulation and Energy Performance Certificates.  The rear living room of the house has a solid floor.  I am going to put Superfoil solid floor insulation down in this room.  It is not clear what the impact on the Energy Performance Certificate will be.  EPCs on homes like this (tens of thousands of them in inner city Birmingham) will typically say ‘suspended timber floor, uninsulated’ which is an easy mistake to make (I myself had forgotten that the back room had a solid concrete floor – when I recently lifted the laminage in the rear room, I saw that it was solid concrete and the memories came back of kneeling down on a concrete floor for two days to put down laminate floor, armed only with a hand saw and my Dad’s Black and Decker Workmate).  Because you need to do two different insulation methods in the front and back rooms, I am not sure what impact this will have on the EPC score.  We’ll see when the EPC assessor gets here at the end of March to issue the final EPC.  Fortunately the other measures will make sure the EPC ends up as a B.  But EPC rating is less important than the actual carbon savings – which I will calculate myself – and the comfort of an energy efficient house – which you can’t measure.  

Warm feet, thanks to insulation of a solid concrete floor in my house

Posted on by Phil Beardmore

 

Energy confidence

 

Warm feet, thanks to insulation of a solid concrete floor in my house 

 

I live in an Edwardian end-terraced house in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, which has recently had major energy efficiency improvements.  My house is part of Balsall Heath Housing Cooperative, a small resident-controlled coop with 77 homes.  Mine is one of 22 older homes that’s part of the project.  The larger measures are being funded by the Coop from its own financial reserves, and part funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund., I am paying for and installing some of the smaller measures myself.

 

I had a bit of a shock when I took up the old laminate floor in the back living room.  I had assumed it was a suspended timber floor like the front room.  Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a solid concrete floor (covered with tiles that were in fairly good condition considering their age)!  I should have known by the absence of air bricks at the back of the house under the floor level, but I had mistakenly assumed that they had just been erroneously blocked, as often happens.  I should have remembered that solid floor from when I laid the laminate floor 20 years ago on my hands and knees armed only with a manual saw!  

 

So we had to change the insulation strategy for the rear living room.  The solution was Superfoil, which goes between the concrete sub-floor and the floor covering, and is wrapped under the internal wall insulation to create a thermal break.  This is important because in houses of this type, the walls don’t always meet the floor evenly, creating a thermal bridge which shows up as a red streak when you do thermal imaging.  Superfoil consists of multiple layers of foil, and it acts mainly by minimising heat loss due to radiation (whereas under-floor insulation of a suspended timber floor like in my front room, acts mainly by minimising heat loss due to convection of warm air downwards through the floorboards into the 30cm crawlspace under the floorboards).  

 

The first step was during the installation of internal wall insulation to the external walls of the rear living room.  This consisted of the co-op’s contractors folding a 30cm layer of Superfoil under the new plaster that went on top of the wall insulation, under the new skirting board, and on the solid concrete floor, ready for floor covering.

 

We then bought an electric underfloor heating mat and got in an electrician (JB Services) to connect it up and leave it rolled up, ready for the next phase.  Which was to tape more Superfoil on top of the whole concrete floor tiles, overlapping the 30cm of Superfoil already there.  Then we unravelled the electric heating mat, leaving it turned off at the wall (it also has a smartphone app with thermostatic control/timer).  Then we put plywood on top, as recommended by the seller of the next layer – bamboo flooring tiles from the Bamboo Flooring Company in Leicester.  We did this in a herringbone pattern.

 

Update 27 October 2025 – it’s now cold outside but the floor feels warm underfoot, even without the under-floor heating on.  The bamboo floor covering is retaining heat much better due to the Superfoil insulation.

 

My house is much warmer thanks to solid wall insulation

Posted on by Phil Beardmore

Energy confidence

Solid wall insulation in my house has made it feel much warmer with lower energy use.

 

I live in an Edwardian end-terraced house in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, which has had major energy efficiency improvements.  My house is part of Balsall Heath Housing Cooperative, a small resident-controlled coop with 77 homes.  Mine is one of 22 older homes that’s part of the project.  The larger measures are being funded by the Coop from its own financial reserves, and part funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund., I am paying for and installing some of the smaller measures myself.

 

My house, which was built in 1905, has solid walls with no cavity.  The outrigger at the back (kitchen on ground floor, bathroom on first floor) was relatively easy to insulate with external wall insulation.  The rear wall of the back living room and back bedroom were insulated at the same time.  New windows were fitted at the back of the house at the same time (the old ones were 25 years old, early double glazed).  The new windows were moved outwards compared to the position of the previous windows.  This creates a thermal break where the window frame meets the walls, which reduces heat loss compared to leaving the windows in the old position.  One of my neighbours commented that the render finish on the back of my house ‘was beautiful’.  I sort of miss the red brick and the masonry window cills and lintels at the back of the house but I can see why my neighbour likes it.  I will grow climbing plants up the render.

 

My house is an end terrace with three outside walls, and a narrow entry (jitty/gulley) between my house and the next row of houses, and so external wall insulation was not possible or practical on the gable end, as it would have narrowed the entry and made it inaccessible to wheelchair users.  So we had internal wall insulation on the gable end walls, upstairs and downstairs.  We also had internal wall insulation on the front wall, as it is very difficult to do external wall insulation safely on an Edwardian style house.  This meant that the external appearance of my house from the front was preserved, including wooden window frames and front door, coving, corbels, and masonry window cills and lintels.  Internal wall insulation was very disruptive and so was the aftermath, but it was worth it in the end.  We’ve spent several months redecorating both bedrooms and both living rooms – which is good really as it was long overdue.

Look! No more black mould! Curing the condensation damp problem in my house

Posted on by Phil Beardmore
black mould on wall

Energy confidence

Curing the condensation damp problem in my house

 

Over the years there have been condensation damp problems in my house.  Not as bad as some of the horror stories I have seen as an energy advisor, but still a nuisance.  

 

During the recent energy saving makeover of my cooperative house, we identified several separate causes that had contributed to condensation damp in recent years.

 

  1.  In the bathroom wall was a redundant water outlet pipe.  This was an unnecessary thermal bridge that was causing a cold spot on which condensation could form.  This was cured by removing the pipe, and sealing it up while installing external wall insulation.

 

In the rear bedroom, there was condensation damp with the following causes:

 

  1. A rotting fascia board, which was identified while preparing to install external wall insulation.  
  2. The loft insulation overlapped the eaves, preventing ventilation, and encouraging cold air to settle on the underside of the ceiling.  1 and 2 were cured by replacing the soffit with a new ventilated soffit as part of extending the roof and installing external wall insulation.
  3. Drying clothes in a bedroom with little ventilation.  This has been solved by installing an airer that uses the heat stratification effect to dry clothes, and ensuring the trickle vent in the window is kept open.
  4. The undercut under the bedroom door was less than 10mm, as the door had slumped off its hinges.  This was contributing to poor ventilation and making the condensation worse.  This was resolved by taking the internal door off its hinges and rehanging it so the undercut was 10mm.  It wasn’t necessary to trim the bottom of the door.

 

The bedroom has dried out, the condensation problem has been solved and I have used moisture sensors to monitor the improvement. 

 

I had to supervise the builders over ventilation.  They didn’t really understand the principles of ventilation.  On several occasions they told me that “ventilation defeats the purpose of insulation” – a dangerous and widespread urban myth.  

 

Sometimes there is a quick fix to solve condensation damp.  But often it’s caused by multiple factors and needs multiple actions to solve it.  

 

Condensation damp is a growing problem in many homes.  Download my guide to condensation damp and what can be done about it- “`Look!  No More Black Mould”!  (Pay as you feel).  

All that glitters is not gold 

Posted on by Phil Beardmore
pipework lagging plus insulation

 

Energy confidence

At the time of writing there is a record amount of capital funding available for energy efficiency measures being thrown at households, mainly low-income households, and older homes with lower energy performance certificate ratings.  Households are being targeted on the basis of postcode and whoever shouts the loudest.  Some types of home are cherry-picked, to the confusion and dismay of those households who are being left behind for reasons nobody can adequately explain to them.  

 

If you are a householder, or a voluntary organisation working with householders, then here are some questions to consider about whether these offers are in the best interests of the householder and their home.  

 

  • What happens if there is existing disrepair to the house, that needs to be remediated before the energy efficiency work can be carried out?  Does the scheme pay for it?  Or does the householder pay for it?  Does the offer of funding get withdrawn if the remedial work cannot be completed in time?
  • Who assesses the home and recommends what measures the home should have?  Is this an independent and bespoke assessment, or is it done for the benefit of the funder or scheme manager to meet their targets?
  • Are there any aspects of the home that make it exceptionally difficult to treat?  Think not only of solid walls, but end terrace gable ends; dormer windows; non-traditional construction.
  • If the proposal includes internal wall insulation or external wall insulation, or a mixture of both, how will the scheme manage the risks of thermal bridging?  Will they extend the roof?  Will windows need to be repositioned or replaced?  How will they comply with established good practice in solid wall insulation?
  • Is floor insulation part of the recommended measures?  How does the scheme manager propose to address thermal bridging where the floor meets the external walls?
  • Is there impartial advice offered to households to enable them to make decisions about their home in conditions of psychological safety?

 

If you can get satisfactory answers to the above questions from the scheme manager then that’s great.  If not, then you should seriously consider whether the offer is in the best interests of the householder, or whether there is a risk of damage to the home that will create a rebound for the householder at some point in the future, which nobody is going to help them with.  We are under no obligation to cheerlead or grandstand for schemes that aren’t in the best interests of householders.  

 

As the ECO4 scheme lurches from crisis to crisis, some installers and scheme managers are becoming desperate to spend money while they can.  In some instances, large regional and national energy charities are encouraging smaller voluntary organisations to join in the gold rush.  Some installers are withdrawing from ECO4, and they are to be admired for putting residents’ best interests ahead of short-term financial gain.  We have to ask ourselves whether ECO is fit for purpose.

 

Do you need my help on retrofit for a house or a community?  Please contact me to see how we can work together. 

Whole-house energy saving makeover to my house – webinar recording

Posted on by Phil Beardmore

Energy confidence

 

 

Recently my house had a whole-house energy saving makeover, you can hear the full story from me in this Green Doors webinar recording.

Click on the video link below to watch the recording.  

 

 

I can’t wait to share with you what we have learned from the energy efficiency makeover of my house – a typical Edwardian terrace

Posted on by Phil Beardmore
retrofit action week

 

Energy confidence

 

 

 

Birmingham based energy expert Phil Beardmore invites you to come and see the remarkable energy efficiency improvements that have taken place at his house.  Warts and all!

The house is part of Balsall Heath Housing Cooperative, a small resident-controlled coop with 77 homes in the B12 and B13 areas of Birmingham

The Cooperative recently decided to make energy efficiency improvements to 21 of its older and least energy efficient homes.

Join us at Phil’s house as he will share the story of how:

– The Cooperative decided what energy saving measures to install in the home

– The experience of working with the cooperative’s contractors – good and bad

– How he managed the disruption to everyday living

– The impact of the energy saving measures so far.

The house already had some energy saving measures (loft insulation, solar thermal panels) but in recent months the following have been installed:

– Under-floor and solid-floor insulation

– Internal and external solid wall insulation

– Smart heating controls

– New windows

– Solar electricity panels

– Under-floor heating.

The measures have raised the energy performance rating of the house from an E to a (predicted) B.  At this event Phil will share the forecast impact on fuel bills and carbon emissions.  You will also be able to see a photo presentation of photos from the installation of the measures, revealing some of the difficulties involved in improving insulation and airtightness in a 1905 end-terrace, typical of so many houses in Birmingham.  The approach to this house could be replicated in other similar houses across the Midlands.

Who should attend?

– Householders

– Energy, construction, and housing professionals

– Students.

– Anyone who wants to understand how mass retrofit schemes work in practice – warts and all

You will be given the full address a few days before the event.

Location

B12 9LQ

Two time slots are offered. This event is likely to book up quickly. Book now!

If you can’t come up in person, be sure to sign up for the evening webinar on Thursday 15th May.

 

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A bird’s nest has been disturbed while insulating the walls of my home – what to do?

Posted on by Phil Beardmore
robin

 

Energy confidence

 

In order to put external wall insulation on my 1905 house, it has been necessary to extend the roofline and replace soffits and fascias.  I knew that sparrows had nested here because they used to wake my youngest daughter up with their singing!  But when the work started you could clearly see where the nest was (see photo).  old bird's nestThe birds haven’t used this for nesting this year, but it’s an example of how improving the energy efficiency of a home can lead to unexpected outcomes.  My garden is dedicated to wildlife so I don’t want to see any loss of habitat.

 

So my eldest daughter bought me new nest box for Christmas, a sparrow terrace, with three ‘houses’ (see photo).  Apparently sparrows like to live in a terrace, because they can pop in and out.  I won’t be able to put it up until the scaffolding comes down though, which will be a few weeks yet.

 

Recently people were talking about putting swift boxes up in Birmingham.  I love swifts, but I have never seen one near my house.  The last time I saw swifts was when me and Claire went to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Barcelona last year.  I checked on EcoRecord and there are very few records of swifts near me.  That might just be because people haven’t reported them, or it might be because they aren’t here.  So I will concentrate on the wildlife that will realistically live in my inner-city Birmingham neighbourhood, rather than the wildlife I would ideally like to attract.