Brick and block homes

Otago and South Canterbury

Wow, amazing, fantastic, unbelievable! These are just a few of the many superlatives uttered by me on the very next morning after Insulmax® completed the installation of their product in the walls of my 1960s brick home.

I noticed the difference IMMEDIATELY. The first thing I noticed was how quiet the house was. The house is not in a noisy neighbourhood but nevertheless the reduced noise level was immediately evident.

The first test in terms of temperature difference came on the night after installation. It was a very cold Dunedin night with sub zero temperatures in the neighbourhood in the early hours and first thing in the morning.  However, I didn’t know this because of the temperature inside the house but rather when I looked out of the window and saw the heavy frost. I then checked the weather app on my phone and saw that the outside temperature in my area was -5 degrees. In the house,the temperature was 13 degrees with no heating on at all. On mornings like this, the inside temperature would have been 6 or 7 degrees maximum. On opening the blinds, as the sun came up, the house warmed rapidly. It was still sub zero outside but the living area heated to 18 degrees in a very short time with no heating required. The insulation simply trapped  the warmth from the sun inside the house.

As the sun set at around 5pm, I closed the blinds as I always do and then sat with no heating on to see how quickly the temperature would drop. After a couple of hours, I got bored with waiting  because it was simply taking too long. Later, I lit my wood burner but with a much smaller fire than usual and watched the temperature climb rapidly to the mid 20s. At this stage, because I was getting too hot,  I had to take off my fleece and open the door to the hallway to let a bit of the heat out into the rest of the house – something that I had never had to do before!

I wondered whether this could possibly be for real but I was not disappointed. The next night was as cold outside as the night  before but I had just the same experience!

It’s hard to describe the immense change in the comfort level of my home.

  • The warmth is totally enveloping. While the thermometer registers a particular temperature, the experience always feels like the temperature is higher.
  • Natural heating from the sun is trapped in the house maintaining the heating effect from the sun long after the sun has gone down.
  • The wood burner heats the space much more quickly than it did previously.
  • The wood burner heats the whole house not just the living area.
  • The house is very, very quiet.

Last but not least. I was very impressed by the attention to detail and courteousness of the installers. They explained everything they were doing,  cleaned up after themselves and the exterior was finished to a standard which satisfied even my pedantic expectations!