External Render with insulation kills windows

[Fender Stratoplaster]

Hello,

We are looking to silicone render the complete outside of our 3 bed house - to replace the shoddy old painted pebbledash on there at the moment.

House is a 30's build, solid brick with no cavity wall so we are losing a lot of heat at the moment and getting a bit of penetrating damp from cracks in the existing render and cold damps walls inside some of the rooms

We've just had a load of work done to renovate the inside of the house and new windows fitted throughout.

We opted for nice flush looking windows but have recently realised the mistake we chose in that if we now get the external render done, if there is insulation to be added to the exterior walls, the nice flush windows will now be heavily recessed. This is something I could probably live with, as I value the practical over the aesthetic but my partner is almost totally against as she thinks it would look awful.

We are thinking about the option of just getting the render applied without insulation but I seem to remember reading somewhere there are building regs that say if you get over 30% of your house rendered you MUST have insulation added also - is this true?

The other option would be adding insulation to the inside of the house on the external walls but this isn't really viable for us as it would cause a major upheaval, not to mention significant loss of floor space and we've got a 3 month old baby with us so worried about the dust etc.

Getting to the point -

My question is, are there any external render solutions that enable you to taper the render leading to the window to prevent it being too recessed or boxed in?

Has anyone had this issues and can suggest any other solutions?


Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 292770]

I don’t see the ‘mistake’ , it’s not as if you could have had your windows fitted 4” outside of the house to allow for insulation.
‘tapered insulation’ would look daft.
Most houses have external window reveals.

 

[Fender Stratoplaster]

Okay maybe not a mistake, but not how my partner 'envisaged' it - the thinking was to have the windows flush to the wall to look sleek and elegant finish wise. But from what I understand, to have that you'd have to have no external insulation on the wall? Thanks, I will look into window reveals as an option to help soften the appearance - wasn't aware of them before

 

[motorbiking]

If you extend the window sills/weather board it will look fine as they will edge the insulation around the window. One option is to just go for 50mm insulation rather than 100mm. It will still bring the U value down by more than 50% and any single skin bay windows by 75%

 

[Fender Stratoplaster]

Thanks - is 50mm insulation pretty spot on or is it 50mm give or take another 20mm after scratch render and then silicone on top? Sounds like could be a better compromise than the 100m. And the edging around the window, is this done with the beading type mesh?

 

[Justin Passing]

Sorry to butt in, but can one fit deeper windows so they protrude 50mm, giving something to render/insulate up to?

 

[motorbiking]

The OP has just had new windows fitted. The problem will be convincing building control to allow the lower spec if more than 25% is changed. You can use the 15 year payback argument

 

[Deleted member 292770]

Sorry to butt in, but can one fit deeper windows so they protrude 50mm, giving something to render/insulate up to?

the profile of most windows isn’t much more than 50mm to begin with unless you fit sash windows.