Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Dec 11, 2013 5:05 pm Hi all, In the process of going through the finer points in a new house i am having built through Stylemaster. It is a 200 square meter house, and unless i can find a spare $3800 to upgrade to a 2590mm ceiling, it will be a standard 2.4m ceiling. Sarking is included. Our current house has no insulation apart from some foil, so pretty new to insulation. By standard Stylemaster include Bradford gold batts R2.5 in the ceiling and no wall insulation (foil to walls). I am looking at upgrading the ceiling batts and installing wall insulation. Pricing indicated was: Ceiling gold batts, R3.5: $800 extra Ceiling gold batts, R5.0: $1400 extra Wall gold batts, R1.5: $12 per square meter, which to do all outer walls works out to $1080 (90m square of wall), assuming my calculations are correct. From my investigations the costs are a bit expensive, but i suppose there is the builder "tax" worked into it. Question is, are these cost figures acceptable and will i see such a difference to go from the R2.5 to R3.5 or R5? Money is tight on the build so if there will be minimal difference to upgrade then i will keep things as is. Cheers. My Noosa 23 Build - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=72782 Re: Insulation upgrades 2Dec 11, 2013 7:19 pm If you go to the link below you will find posts that will show you how to calculate the heat loss/gain through walls and the roof: http://www.anewhouse.com.au/category/su ... nsulation/ The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Insulation upgrades 3Dec 11, 2013 8:34 pm Those prices sound a little expensive to me. I'm building a 34sq home upgrading from 3.5 to 6 and it's approx $1k. Also if your going through a big builder their house will be 6 star and they should be able to point you in the right direction. My advice is ceiling upgrade is mandatory and walls secondary with 2.5 as a min. Just to note the r value of foil is approx 1 Re: Insulation upgrades 4Dec 12, 2013 6:45 am Crazyk Those prices sound a little expensive to me. I'm building a 34sq home upgrading from 3.5 to 6 and it's approx $1k. Also if your going through a big builder their house will be 6 star and they should be able to point you in the right direction. My advice is ceiling upgrade is mandatory and walls secondary with 2.5 as a min. Just to note the r value of foil is approx 1 Lucky you, but I was originally quoted $1300 to add R2.5 to walls and another $1300 to upgrade ceiling batts from R2.5 to R4.0. If I'd gone for R5.0 for ceiling it would have been $3000. So really, I think the OP's quotes to be quite reasonable. I think the savings of having both will more than equal the costs in just a couple of years. And let's face it - the cost of comfort is relative only to the person living in the house Re: Insulation upgrades 5Dec 12, 2013 7:06 am I'm not sure why only R2.5 would be standard for ceiling insulation. Has there been a thermal assessment carried out. If not you may be required to upgrade the ceiling and/or wall insulation levels in any case to meet the 6 star requirements. Peter Clarkson - AusDesign Australia www.ausdesign.com.au This information is intended to provide general information only. It does not purport to be a comprehensive advice. Re: Insulation upgrades 6Dec 12, 2013 7:31 am Builder may not be cheaper as they may add on the % for staff,admin etc etc. But - its nice to move in and have it all done - ie no-one touching your roof etc. I'd check the prices and maybe go with builder IF he's around the same. There are a lot of "providers" about who may give the talk - but may not provide the back-up. If your builder does it you know who did the work - know the warranty and have a fall-back if anything is wrong. This has to be weighed up in the final decision. Re: Insulation upgrades 7Dec 13, 2013 11:17 am If you going with private builder (I don't know who Stylemaster are), just ask him how many rolls of insulation are required and get a price yourself. You'll soon know how much cream he's putting on top. If not, supply it yourself might be easier. Re: Insulation upgrades 8Dec 13, 2013 4:39 pm Thanks for the replies. It's an off the plan build so i know they are throwing their extra costs on top, but not much i can do. Suppose i can try bargaining, doubt i will have any luck though (This is too expensive... Oh too expensive? Well you can remove it.) If possible i would tell them to not do roof insulation (only wall as it's easier during build) and get someone in to do it later, but with the six star requirement that probably won't be possible. I highly doubt the house will meet 6 star energy requirements, but using R2.5 insulation seems to put them over the requirement somehow for their other houses. R1.5 is the highest he had for wall insulation but i have asked for a quote for R2.5. Let's see if they price themselves out of the market. My Noosa 23 Build - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=72782 Re: Insulation upgrades 9Dec 13, 2013 6:03 pm Hi Whzzzz The standard insulation offered by them will give you the 6 star energy rating in a perfect siting situation. What does this mean? Genearally that most living space will be north facing. You can ask them what is the prefered siting direction to achieve the 6 star rating. They can easily tell you based on your orientation if based on the standard plan, and I mean no alterations to eaves, windows etc what the rating will be, it's a very simple calculation tell them to ask head office. In regard to the wall insulation, they specify R1.5 (note you can't go too high because you only have a 90mm cavity) but, with the foil it will at R1 so total R rating for the wall will be R2.5. Hope this makes sense, if not ask more questions, but you are correct, upgrading the ceiling batts yourself is easy (if single story). Re: Insulation upgrades 10Dec 28, 2013 8:03 am Saint Mike Builder may not be cheaper as they may add on the % for staff,admin etc etc. . Ok I will bite. How much extra does it cost in terms of staff and admin to order x m2 of say R2.5 compared to ordering x m2 of R4? When it comes to actual product costs I just did a quick search online and found Bradford Gold Batts 580mm for $49.97 a pack which covers 12.2 m2. The same product and size from the same shop but R4.0 is $47.30 per pack but it only does 7.6 m2. So to do a 200m2 roof cavity you would require 17 bags of R2.5 at a TOTAL cost of about $850 or 27 bags of R4.0 at a TOTAL cost of $1277.10. (On a per m2 basis R2.5 is $4.10 and R4 is $6.20). The upgrade cost in materials from R2.5 to R4.0 in my example of 200m2 is therefore just $427. Of course there will be a minor increase in installation and transport costs for the R4.0 as there are more bags and volume meaning more handling labor to get them off the truck and lift them into the roof cavity, but laying them the batt count is the same. So would think a max of maybe 1/2 to 1 hour more in Labor costs. So a total cost and being generous here of around $600 to upgrade from R2.5 to R4.0. Hey guys building a new place through a volume builder and just wondering if i should complain to the site supervisor as we just had plasterboard installed. Looks like… 0 11273 1000000% definitely add insulation. I have in my home and it makes a big difference minimising sound transfer. Insulation is pretty cheap and definitely worth it 2 6191 |