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100 Year Old Newquay Town House
1950s House Retrofit with Major Insulation Upgrades for Efficiency
Coming soon - Heating System Efficiency Upgrade with Smart Controls and Elimination of Short Cycling
1950s House Retrofit with Major Insulation Upgrades for Efficiency
When it comes to heating, we don’t believe in "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Every homeowner has different goals, which is why we work hand-in-hand with all of our customers to design a system that fits their lifestyle, budget, and long-term goals.
For this 1950s semi-detached home, the owners came to us with a clear vision: they wanted maximum energy efficiency and the lowest possible monthly running costs.
To achieve their dream, we collaborated closely on a tailored, top-to-bottom upgrade.
The Design: Tailored for Low Bills
Because the homeowners wanted to slash their monthly outgoings, we advised that investing in the home's "shell" first would yield the best return on investment. Stopping heat from escaping is the first step to high efficiency homes. Together, we opted for:
High-Performance Insulation: Trapping the heat inside so the heating system doesn't have to work hard to replace lost heat.
Full Pipework Replacement: Replacing old, restrictive pipes with a modern, high-flow system.
Underfloor Heating (UFH) & Radiator Upgrades: Designed to spread warmth evenly and efficiently.
The Magic Number: Low Flow Temperatures
By combining excellent insulation with underfloor heating and modern radiators, we achieved what’s known as a low flow temperature.
What does this actually mean? Most traditional heating systems run super hot water (around 70°C) through small, old radiators. It’s highly inefficient. This house would have been build with minimal insulation and single glazed windows, so needed to run the heating at higher temperatures.
Because we insulated this home so well and gave it larger heating surfaces (like the underfloor system), the water only needs to be lukewarm (designed to run at only 37˚ on the coldest days of the winter) to keep the rooms perfectly cozy. The rest of the year the smart controller will adjust itself to run the system at the optimal temperature.
Instead of constantly blasting energy to keep the house warm, the system gently sips electricity. The homeowners got exactly what they asked for: a warm, comfortable home and incredibly low monthly bills.
Want a System Designed Around Your Goals?
We don’t just install boilers or heat pumps; we partner with you to design a system that works for your home, your family, and your wallet. Whether you want cutting-edge efficiency or a simple, reliable upgrade, we will help you build it.
[Click here to contact us today, let’s design your perfect system together]
The 100 Year Old Newquay Town House
It All Begins Here
I hear it very often, ‘my home is very old, would a heat pump even work?’ We’re talking about a classic century-old Newquay town house: solid brick walls, massive original windows, and a total heat loss that would make most installers run a mile.
But here’s the thing: heat loss is just a number. It doesn't matter if a house was built in 1924 or 2024; the physics of heating stays exactly the same. You just have to replace the energy the building loses.
The Challenge: Single Skin Walls and Big Windows
Because this house has "single-skin" solid walls, it loses heat much faster than a modern cavity-wall home. Cavity walls create an air pocket that breaks the transfer of heat between the inside and outside air. The massive windows don't help either, they’re basically giant magnets for the cold. To make this work, we had to be incredibly precise with the engineering.
The "Lid on the Cup" analogy
Before we touched the heating, we made sure the fundamentals were in place. I always tell clients: you need double glazing and at least 200mm of loft insulation. It’s like putting a lid on a coffee cup. Without that "cap," the heat pump is just fighting a losing battle against the sky. This particular customer opted for 300mm insulation which helped a lot. Because heat rises, if you put a ‘lid’ onto the house, it stops the heat escaping into the air outside.
The Engineering: Low and Slow
The secret to this job was running the system at 43°C. Most people are used to a boiler blasting the radiators at 70°C for an hour and then switching off. We did the opposite. We set this up, as everyone should with an ASHP, to run "low and slow."
To get enough heat out of 43°C heating system in this house, we installed larger radiators. It’s all about surface area, meaning more metal on the wall means we can deliver all that required heat without needing the water to be scalding hot. These radiators are designer vertical radiators in living areas, and triple (or K3) in areas we could afford to put them.
The Pipework "Motorway" (and the One-Pipe Problem)
One question I get asked all the time is: "Do I have to rip up all my floorboards?" Usually, we try to work with what’s there, but this house had an old one-pipe system.
Think of your pipework like a motorway. In a modern "two-pipe" system, every radiator has its own exit and entry to the motorway. In an old one-pipe system, all the radiators are essentially sharing a single, slow lane. For a heat pump to work efficiently at 43°C, you need high flow rates—you need multiple lanes to move that thermal energy.
Since the customer was doing renovation works anyway, it was the perfect time to bite the bullet. We stripped out the old one-pipe arrangement and installed a proper two-pipe circuit. This ensured the heat pump could deliver the right volume of water to those new, larger radiators. Without that change, we never would have hit the efficiency targets the house needed.
The Result: 400% Efficiency
By sticking to these fundamentals and stabilising the envelope, sizing the rads for the actual heat loss, and fixing the hydraulic "bottleneck"—we achieved an efficiency of over 400%.
That means for every 1kW of electricity the owner pays for, they get 4kW of heat into the house. Even with those 100-year-old walls and big windows, the house stayed at a steady 20°C all winter.
It just goes to show: if the engineering is right, the age of the house doesn't matter.
