We had someone contact us via the blog recently who has also just bought a timber frame house (perhaps we have more blogging company Anna lol) and they wanted to talk via email to learn from our experiences…I figure that others may also be able to learn from the experience so I am posting my long winded response here…
Carol wrote:
“thank you for the reply need to know how you insulated the house what’s the cheapest for of heating ext do you have to pay rates when you are not in occupation what materials or what type of plaster to plaster walls ext this would be very helpful to know thanks carol”
And I responded:
Hi Carol,
Insulation was already installed in the house for the most part. The walls are clay (“lehm” auf Deutsch) around the timbers and that has a bit of insulating property itself. We were here in the house over the winter and aside from the huge hole we had for a while where we were extending the kitchen, it managed to stay rather warm. The original windows are in many of the rooms in the house and are very thin so we are looking into insulating film for those windows. Not sure yet on costs, availability or how much that would actually insulate but will certainly post about it when we learn more so perhaps you will want to watch the blog in the future. We will eventually be building out our horse stables and the attic of the main house and will use rolls of insulation in the ceiling but nothing with fiberglass in it because it’s so unpleasant to work with. There are some more natural fibers like hemp which can be used and you can sometimes get a tax credit although those credits change all the time so you would need to research that more first.
In the floor of our kitchen, large Styrofoam pieces (think big tiles, about 3 inches thick and 3 feet by 4 feet) were used as a base for insulation on the foundation and then screet (“estrich”) was poured on top. The tile was laid on top of this once everything was set. Our neighbors also just did some renovations on their home (built in the 50’s I would guess) and they used these panels on top of their existing walls outside to provide extra insulation. We believe some of these have also been used on the outside of our home between the timber framing to insulate a bit more and then plaster was put on top of them.
Is your home under historical protection (“denkmalschutz”)? Some people have both the inside and outside of their homes protected and then you must check with the historical office regarding what can be used. Our home is protected outside and they are not too picky about what you do inside. We’ve not gone to great lengths to use only natural and original materials because we just don’t have that kind of budget 😉
Oil powered heaters are the norm in our experience. Some people also may use electric panels and/or wood stoves. Electric is of course rather expensive. Wood stoves in conjunction with regular radiators usually helps a lot. At the moment we pay around €50 a month for electricity. 3000 liters of oil was about €1600 including tax which was about 3/4 of a tank I think. These rates fluctuate with oil prices of course. A tank lasts the whole winter in most cases. We had a pretty mild winter last year and we weren’t living in the house until the end of January so we missed part of the winter. The heaters usually have complex scheduling capabilities and of course can be shut off with a main switch so if you wanted to leave you wouldn’t have a problem controlling the temps. There are even more automated systems which you could probably control over the internet. But if you are going to leave the house alone over the winter you obviously don’t want the heater off completely since the pipes in your house could experience freezing temps. Not something you’d want to come back to. We are also looking into alternative methods of heating our home and property such as a home power plant which generates your electricity and heats your home and water but I won’t go into any details yet since we have only just started our research there….another post for the future 😉
I believe for things like phone and satellite you can probably defer payments when you are out of the country. Things like electricity you would probably want to leave on and set lights on timers or have someone come in and switch on various lights when you aren’t there to deter uninvited house guests 😉
Plastering walls will again be a personal choice option and will depend on whether it is an interior or exterior wall. They now make clay plaster material which you can even cast bricks out of and can use in your walls which is similar to the original clay they used. We have to repair a few places outside by our front door and will be using normal cement plaster and likely use a high quality paint that provides a lot of air flow so that the house can continue to “breathe.” You have to be careful with timber frame houses when changing insulation, adding double pane windows and things that which would have an impact on the air flow of the house itself. Humidity can build up in the house and inside your walls if you insulate too tightly and you would then need to make sure you have all your windows open for at least 30 minutes every day. Not a major task but you could essentially cause your home to disintegrate otherwise. You would actually be able to see condensation on your windows during the day and this would also begin to affect the beams in your ceilings and walls, causing mold and who knows what else. Not something you want to happen.
I hope this answers your questions a bit and that this information is useful. We’re still learning as we go along and try to post as much in our blog as possible so hopefully you can learn a few more things there too 🙂
If you have more questions we’ll try to answer them!
Tiffany
