Thermafleece

[Anonymous]

After my last question on drylining, Biff and worms mentioned sheeps wool for insulation. I've done some research, and despite the price am very keen.
Can anyone advise on the thickness I should use for wall, underfloor and roof. There appears to be three sizes 50,75 and 100m.
Also I can only find one maker Thermafleece. Does anyone know of others.

Thanks

John

 

[Anonymous]

I'm sure that there are others, but please do consider Thermafleece - much of it made from the fleece of Herdwicks, and sourced from Cumbrian hill farms. After foot and mouth it's given farms a reason to keep going in many cases.



http://www.secondnatureuk.com/

 

[Anonymous]

Here's a pic of Thermafleece HQ at Dacre... <IMG SRC="http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussing/smileys/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">


Thermafleece HQ

 

[Anonymous]

I had an interesting conversation at the last masham sheep fair, the price for a fleece - ie what the farmer gets is peanuts. The bloke I spoke to said he made less than £1 per fleece - I cant remember exactly what he quoted (ie is that profit or price) but I was astounded. It seems to be barely worht the cost of shearing.

So I would be interested to hear what happens to the fleece to turn it into the very expensive insulation product.
wash? dry/heat?

And I would be thinking about talking to some sheep farmers and doing some research.

 

[Anonymous]

Until Thermafleece, farmers were burning the wool -no market for it, it's not much use for anything else a great deal of it - especially Herdwick, although without them to graze the Lakeland fells would be a very different landscape to the one I know and love. Another small market is carpets - from a firm in Kendal - again, to try to give an outlet for something which otherwise would be totally uneconomic. Hardwearing but not exactly soft for woollen garments.

I think trying simply to use untreated fleeces as insulation may bring all manner of difficulties. You can of course try it - but I'm going for Thermafleece when I can afford it! Before next winter hopefully. I was in the middle of foot and mouth - living in a in a 'Blue Box' zone - and I know that this business was set up to try to give a future for Herdwicks initially although obviously now this has grown to include a wider market.

Consider costs - of transport, of setting up space to manufacture, of paying a workforce, of marketing - of investment. The raw product is only a fraction of this. If more was paid then it's likely that the costs of the product - already high I agree -would be so high that no-one, no matter how 'green', would wish to buy it.

I have no doubt that eventually a rival product will be imported at less cost - to the purchaser - although consider the fact that the workforce abroad may be being exploited, aninmal welfare may not be what it could be, and that the costs of shipping are environmentally unacceptable.

I went yesterday to Damson Day in the Lyth Valley - to try to support the last of the Westmorland damson growers. I bought all manner of things - damson syrup, coulis, ice cream, jam, farm butter, organic farm cheese, cakes - all things I could have bought much more cheaply at Tesco (if not the quality). Yet these were from small producers, many so small they were made by farmer's wives in the kitchen as a tiny business enterprise to help out with diversification and keep the farm going.

Do consider Thermafleece.

 

[Anonymous]

There's an article in this month's Resurgence, by Rob Hopkins, entitled 'Building Miles, in which he remarks that Australian wool is flown to Germany to be transformed into insulation material and then trucked to the UK.
Rob's a good bloke. You can read the article from his website here:


Transition Culture

 

[Anonymous]

Were the Damsons flowering yet? Ours are still in bud.

 

[Anonymous]

No - very late this year, just starting. It's been a long hard winter.

However - the event no longer relies on walks round the flowering hedgerows, for obvious reasons, and has grown to be rather larger - on a farm in the farm buildings, with a field to park, instead of the community hall. It's great to see how many products are being made from Lyth Valley damsons now, to keep production going. I have a small tree to plant when I find space.

It's still very much a 'local' event though, not a hugecommercial one. Music by locals, schools involved, splendid teas privided by the community 'food' van which was inspired by a Swedish system - allows farmers families to get food to markets and prepare and sell on the spot.

Scones damson jam and clotted cream, sticky gingerbread and a cuppa - for two - three quid. Can't be bad!

I'd still like people to consider Thermafleece - to keep the Herdwicks going!

Beatrix Potter would have approved!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the information.
There are so many decisions to make, ahhhh.. and an ethical dimension does help in concluding them. ( " right, it's done. Now let's move on " )
Thermafleece it will be, thanks to the savings I will make in other ways !!!!!!!
Would still like info on the sizes if anyone can help?

Thanks

John

 

[Anonymous]

If you search the website there are PDF files and technical info - you may find the answers there.

Failing that - give 'em a ring at Dacre!

Penrith folk - bound to be nice!

 

[Anonymous]

In fact it does say that you can obtain technical advice - click the PDF link below.

This also explains that farmers cannot sell wool direct...


http://www.secondnatureuk.com/files/background.pdf

 

[Anonymous]

Here's more info, and info on Goodacre carpets too (see products link)


http://www.herdwick-sheep.com/

 

[Anonymous]

Comments have been made above suggesting that since raw wool is so cheap at the farm gate, there should be more opportunity to use wool for insulation. Yet as Evelyn has observed, it is the expensive choice and is often aspirational.

Many wool producing areas have looked into setting up wool-for-insulation production plants and most often the economics don’t stack up. Wool insulation is made from scoured wool – after the grease, sand, mud, vegetable matter and faeces are removed. That process is expensive and relies on economies of scale and the ability to handle all the by-products and waste – very difficult on a cottage-scale. The benefit that the Thermafleece people have is their relative proximity to Bradford and the wool infrastructure there, rather than their proximity to hill sheep.

There are competing wool insulation products from New Zealand and Ireland available on the UK market.

 

[Anonymous]

Although wool is expensive if it is compared with 'man-made' insulation, it does seem to have benefits which such other insulation doesn't have.

I have to say over the past winter when we had no heating and had to conserve what little we had (we have insulation but it's not enough) I was tempted to simply buy some of the plastic wrapped stuff from the DIY sheds as it was cheap - but thankfully didn't (the guilt factor prevailed!) ad now plan to do the loft a little at a time (the space is divided as the house was added to over time) with Thermafleece as and whaen we can afford to. I have no doubt that savings in heating will offset the costs.

I too need to delve into thicknesses suitable for loft insulation, although not wall, but I'm very convinced of the long-term benefit of using a 'breathable' material in the loft and elsewhere.

Thankfully I don't have to worry about submitting plans for building regs, but I see that Thermafleece people will help out with U-value calculations too.

I haven't compared prices yet with imports - although I am willing to pay extra for a 'local' product (I live in the north). My concern is that if this begins to look like a growing market we will have cheap imports from further afield... China for example, which now seems to manufacture most things available and is, as the article linked to by Biff states, this is simply not sustainable.

 

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately sheepswool seems to need a lot of processing before it is suitable for use as an insulation. Still, much better health wise and excellent in terms of using a product that might otherwise just be wasted.

The thermal conductivity of sheepswool is the same as mineral wool quilt (actually a shade better - but only a very small shade) so if you would have needed 200mm of mineral wool then use 200mm of sheepswool.

 

[Anonymous]

Lanolin extraction is possibly expensive - the other things possibly all they require is a good wash! It would pong a lot if unprocessed I'm sure.

Thanks for the info re thicknesses. All I have to do now is to change that to inches - my house is pre metric!!!

 

[Anonymous]

couple of links

CAT sheeps wool insulation
http://www.cat.org.uk/information/catinfo.tmpl?command=search&db=catinfo.db&eqSKUdatarq=20020210163937&eqCURRENTdatarq=0

Grauniad , sheepswool vs old newspaper
(they say 270mm (9") thermafleece btw)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1459672,00.html

Green options - incl flax and hemp (honestly officer, its insulation..)
http://www.greenspec.co.uk/html/design/materials/insulation.html

Konrad has also done some interesting work on insulation.

 

[Anonymous]

bollocks

270mm = 11"

(but if its a bloke talking then resize accordingly)

 

[Anonymous]

Hi

Phoned this morning, spoke with Will and got all the information I need, although more is available from an in-house specialist.
I just have to work out the most cost efficient way of getting the stuff.
Thanks

John

 

[Anonymous]

Rams and wethers, not bullocks.