Builder chooses Actis Hybrid to avoid eye watering Channel Island electricity bills
A couple living in the Channel Islands, where electricity costs around six times as much as it does in the UK, are looking forward to minimal heating bills thanks to building a thermally efficient workshop and storage area in their grounds.
Robert and Puffin Taylour, who live on Sark, have just seen work completed on a 100 m sq outbuilding which has been insulated with all three Actis Hybrid products for maximum heat retention.
Living on a small island with no cars, a population of 400 and only a daily ferry service requires a hefty element of self-sufficiency and the Taylours wanted a space in which to store and maintain possessions and protect equipment such as their lawn mower from the ravages of the marine environment.
The building was designed and constructed with the support of their son Christopher who runs Cornwall-based development company Wycliffe Estates.
With electricity costing a staggering 64p a unit on the island - compared with around 10p in Britain - slashing costs was of overriding importance for the pair.
Christopher, who has used and been impressed by the Hybrid range in the past, opted to install the system in the new building – rather than choosing foam panels which he’d used before discovering the Actis range.
In addition to its impressive U-value, Christopher, whose company has won awards for its work, chose the products for three other key reasons –the speed and ease with which they can be installed, its lack of waste and the fact that its compact nature means it is easy to transport by boat to the island and manually thereafter to his parents’ home.
“It could all be moved and stored by hand. The lack of waste was important - and most of all performance as the price of energy is very high,” he explained.
The family used 170mm honeycomb style insulation Hybris panels, insulating vapour control layer HControl Hybrid and insulating breather membrane Boost’R Hybrid on the walls and roof. Additionally, he used 1″ plywood inside and outside the walls before cladding them in 22mm cedar.
Although they haven’t measured it, the U-value is likely to be 0.11 in both the walls and roof.
One of the reasons for the impressive thermal performance of the Actis Hybrid range is that its flexible nature enables it to avoid thermal bridging scenarios. The products can bend round corners and be squashed into gaps in a way which is simply not possible when using a rigid alternative.
Additionally, using HControl Hybrid on the warm side of any insulation material, behind the internal finish in roofs, walls and ceilings, massively reduces the risk of interstitial condensation and guarantees airtightness.
And Boost’R Hybrid is ideal for moisture control. Reflective and watertight, yet vapour permeable it’s used on the cold side of roofs and walls. Because water vapour molecules are smaller than those in water droplets it lets moisture out but doesn’t let water in. It also helps improve the building’s airtightness. The membrane not only keeps damp out, it boosts thermal resistance, keeping heat in.