Wall Insulation Grants

How wall insulation works and how to see if you can claim a grant.

 

Can you get a wall insulation grant?

Now that the ECO4 grants are being released, if you and your property qualify you may be able to claim for some or all of the cost of wall insulation in your home. Invictus Energy Group are home energy experts, helping people fit wall insulation with grant money as well as ensure the rest of the home is insulated too.

How to get a wall insultion grant

Because wall insulation can make a huge difference to how much energy your home needs to stay warm and cosy, the UK Government has released funding to help lower-income households fit wall insulation and other measures as part of ECO4.

ECO4 which replaced ECO3 in April 2022 is a move away from free boiler grants and towards insulating homes so they are better at retaining the heat they generate.

This means that when you look at ECO4 grants, you’re not just looking at wall insulation but potentially having your loft and floors done too!

Invictus Energy Group have helped thousands of homes get warm and stay warm with ECO grants, and can help assess you and your home for a grant today.

Types of wall insulation

When we talk about wall insulation we’re actually talking about a number of applications, all suitable for different situations, but all involve adding extra insulative material to vertical walls to help reduce drafts and retain heat in the home. Here are some of the main types of wall insulation that may be applicable to your home through an Invictus Energy ECO grant.

Cavity wall insulation

Many homes built in the 20th century feature walls that are two bricks thick, but with a gap (or wall cavity) in between them. The idea of this is to reduce the amount of damp and condensation that can appear on the internals walls that line the living area of the home. 

Now, it is possible to place insulation materials in the wall cavity that allow the house to breathe, but provide an extra insulative effect to the home. Usually, this material is injected through holes drilled into the wall as either polyurethane foam (PU) or expended polystyrene beads (EPS). Which type of cavity wall insulation is suitable for your home will depend on a lot of factors, and you may benefit from an assessment by one of our Retrofit Insulation Assessors. 

 

Solid wall insulation

Older properties such as the millions of Victorian terraced homes found all over the UK were often built with solid walls. While they are usually two-bricks thick, there is usually little or no void space between the two layers, unlike with cavity walls. This can make them both more prone to damp problems as the moisture is able to transfer from the outer-layer to the inner space, and worse at retaining heat generated in the home as this can also travel more easily through the brickwork.

Solid wall insulation is applied to the internal walls to help combat this. Using a system of studs, insulation board, mineral wool rolls and plasterboard, an extra layer of insulation is applied to the inner walls and the expense of a few centimetres of floor space. 

Again, our retrofit assessors may recommend solid wall insulation as part of ECO4 grant work on your home. 

 

External wall insulation

External wall insulation is a category of solid wall insulation where insulative materials as fixed to the exterior of a property being rendered to make them weatherproof. External wall insulation is made of several different materials, including fibreglass, foam board, blown-in cellulose and injection foam, depending on what is the most applicable to the property.

Internal wall insulation 

The more common type of solid wall insulation, this measures means applying insulation to the interior of the solid walls using a framework of studs, foam board, mineral wool insulation and plasterboard.

 

What does internal wall insulation look like?

Internal wall insulation can take a few different forms, but mostly it when a stud wall is created as a frame for large pieces of insulation board with a plasterboard finish. These insulation boards and measured for a perfect fit, taped up using special tape before a plaster applies the finishing touches.

Stud Wall Is Built

The stud wall is what holds everything in place. Measured and cut to fit, it always featured a membrane to stop any moisture being transferred through the insulation and plasterboard later.

Fit boards

The insulation board (pink) is already bonded with standard plasterboard, which is fitted into place over the new stud wall. This takes a little space from the room, but makes up for it by keeping things warm.

Taping up

The seams between the boards are taped up using special tape that not only helps insulate, but also makes applying a plaster finish much easier.

Plastering and Finishing

Finally, the finishing touches are added by our expert team of plasteres and multitraders for a homely finish.

Does wall insulation work?

Absolutely, even better when combined with loft insulation and under floor insulation so that the heat generated inside your home has little opportunity to escape. 

Studies by the Energy Saving Trust show that the average home can save the following on their annual fuel bills.

How can I get a wall insulation grant?

We can help with that. Invictus Energy Group has helped thousands of households access ECO grants to pay for work to improve the energy efficiency of their home. 

To begin, just use the form below to provide us with an idea about your eligibility. We can then send a trained retrofit assessor to your home to see if wall insulation could be help improve your EPC rating

Why choose Invictus Energy Group to install wall insulation?

We invest in our staff so they can invest their time, knowledge and skill into your home improvements. We fully train our retrofitting staff to industry standards and beyond so they can work on your home with full confidence. 

Wall insulation FAQs

  • As of April 2022 the new ECO4 grants are available. Based on your household benefits income and how much your home’s EPC can be improved by, a successful ECO4 grant may make funding for cavity wall insulation, solid wall insulation, loft and floor insulation or a mixture of all. You can find out more about your eligibility with Invictus Energy Group.

  • Wall insulation should not cause damp issues if fitted correctly and the rest of the house does not suffer from water penetration issues. Modern wall insulation materials and fitting techniques are designed to allow homes to breathe, keeping them well ventilated enough to ensure moisture is removed from the walls naturally. That being said, if a wall already has an issue with rising damp or penetration, then some insulative materials may become damp too.

  • The age of the property is a good indicator. If the house is built before 1920 it most likely has solid walls, and after 1920 it is more likely to have cavity walls. Solid walls are usually thinner too, with Cavity walls being at least 260mm thick.