I’ve lived in two countries in Western Europe, but I’m just piecing this together now, I think…?
Are homes not generally insulated?
If not, are newer homes required to be? Is it expensive to add it later?
It’s just something I had assumed, I guess, as you’d basically just freeze/roast to death here if your house wasn’t insulated.
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Most houses are insulated. But how much depends on how old your house is and what the upkeep has been.
Generally they are, and it’s mandatory to do it to a certain level in newer projects but there are houses out there that have like a single pane of glass and just aren’t well insulated by todays standards.
Monumental canal houses can be a hassle to get up to date
They certainly are.
Old buildings can have bad insulation because they’re not always legally required to be well insulated.
Over here they ofc are, but we’re also that far north-east that your question obviously does not apply for us.
As for western countries: I think it also depends on what you count as insulation. If you mean mineral wool etc only, then I don’t think houses in many countries are insulated. If extra layers of plaster etc count, they are. And obviously insulation also depends on the other materials used on the house.
My very much non-scientific impression is that older houses in Norway often are surprisingly badly insulated compared to what would be possible today. Lots of heating is electric and electricity has traditionally been cheap, so I guess at least partly it is because better insulation has not been worth the cost. You still need a house good enough insulated so you don’t freeze inside, but better insulating it to save energy costs hasn’t been a priority. Might change due to rising prices though.
Newer houses are usually well insulated.
This highly depends on the country (even on the region) and the age of the building/house.
For instance, most houses in Portugal don’t have proper insulation, but new buildings and houses are insulated. In many regions of Spain (especially warm regions in the south), houses are not well insulated because their weather never gets that cold, so it wasn’t seen as a necessity until recently. However, in colder regions of Spain, such as here in the Catalan Pyrenees, proper insulation has been standard for decades because of our (usually) harsh winters.
Depends on age. Any house built in the last few decades in Ireland will have at least some insulation. More recently, there are strict rules on the required energy efficiency of new properties, so good insulation is required.
They are. How much depends on age, but all new builds are required to be almost energy neutral.
Mine is insulated but it depends on the place and the age of the house.
I´d say that in Sweden most housed old or new are well insulated, they do have to withstand temepratures down to -30 in some places of the country so.
Older houses are more drafty as things tend to shift with age leaving windows and doors a bit drafty, but those tihngs are usually easily fixed and most people would update their windows and doors should they be letting to much cold in. A lot of people tend to install fireplaces if they live in the colder parts of the country if they can and don´t already have that. Most old houses will have some sort of fireplace installed as that is how you´d heat the house back in the early 1900´s or earlier.
Older houses often are badly insulated and it can get quite expansive to add insulation.
in colder parts of spain houses are really well insulated, buildings have thick walls, etc. in hotter places (almost every city near the mediterranean sea?), walls are thinner because its not that cold, and even if it gets cold it doesnt last long. its best to use fresh air when the heat comes around (almost the entire year).
when its hot, you open your windows so that the cool wind can get inside your home (there are a lot of sun hours and floor in the street gets hot), and when the wind from the sahara desert comes (a hot katabatic wind), its just best to close every window until it has passed (a few days)
and no, if we had sturdy walls here in the south it would reach insanely high temperatures. it has to be this way
Standards for new constructions are quite strict when it comes to insulation so construction companies have to insulate well or face legal repercussions.
For old buildings basically anything goes. Some have been insulated from the start, some have been insulated later and others are still huge energy sinks.
I have no idea where you were in Western Europe that people don’t insulate their homes. Never heard of this ever
We recently built a house in Denmark and our outer wall insulation is a 30 cm layer. All windows are 3 layered glass and we need a ventilation system to ensure that air circulates.
Before we could take ownership of the house, they had to do a vacuum test by taping up the ventilation and making sure the house could hold vacuum for a certain amount of time.
In short, my house is very will insulated!
Old houses (built from bricks and mortar) were required to have external walls one and a half brick (36 cm) thick. That’s not bad isolation.
The house I live in was built before 1840 and the four external walls are 48 cm thick (2 bricks). Way better isolation than any modern concrete structure or those cardboard constructions you see in the US
They are well-insulated in Norway.
I can see how homes in southern Europe don’t have the same levels of insuation as it would cause a lot of suffering in the summer months.
Most homes are, especially newer ones. But a lot of homes built within the odd 20 years after WWII lack proper insulation because they needed to be as cheap as possible.