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Brick creams — siloxane-based water repellent treatments applied to masonry surfaces — are a genuinely useful tool in retrofit, though one that attracts more debate than it perhaps deserves. The controversy is largely historical: earlier formulations tended to block pores…
In this episode, Chris & Andy discuss the importance of considering airtightness when insulating. Insulation and airtightness are two distinct but inseparable parts of a well-performing building fabric, and a common misconception is that one can substitute for the other.…
PIR and wood fibre insulation are both widely used insulation materials, but they differ in almost every meaningful respect beyond their basic function of reducing heat loss. On acoustics, the contrast is stark: PIR is lightweight and rigid, which makes…
Silicone render is a polymer-based finish coat applied over a lime basecoat that combines two properties which are difficult to achieve simultaneously in traditional materials: strong water repellency and good vapour permeability. It keeps liquid water from penetrating the surface…
Wood fibre insulation is a timber-based material and it does burn — that much is straightforward. What’s less well understood is how it burns and what that means in practice. In complete combustion, wood fibre produces very few harmful by-products…
The question of whether an approved installer is necessary is one that comes up regularly, and the honest answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no. Many manufacturers run their own training schemes and approved installer programmes, but…
Natural ventilation is intuitively appealing — fresh air coming in through open windows and trickle vents, no mechanical systems, no noise, nothing to maintain. The reality of relying on it as a serious strategy is considerably less comfortable. In practice,…
Partially insulating a building is technically possible, and for projects that need to be phased over time a staged approach can be made to work — but it comes with genuine risks that are worth understanding before committing to it.…
Airtightness, breathability, and vapour control are three concepts that get conflated and confused in equal measure, and understanding how they interact is fundamental to designing a building fabric that performs well and doesn’t accumulate moisture damage over time. Airtightness means…
The question of why we insulate is rarely one that reaches BTE directly — most people have already decided they want to by the time they make contact — but the full picture is worth laying out clearly because the…
For solid-walled properties, the choice between external and internal wall insulation is one of the most common questions in retrofit — and the honest answer is that both have genuine merits and neither is universally better. External wall insulation keeps…
Plasterboard has something of an image problem in natural building circles, and it’s largely undeserved. Gypsum — the core material in plasterboard — is a naturally occurring mineral that requires very little processing: it’s extracted from the ground, dried at…