This just reminds me of a random discussion I had with a very close German friend.
He pointed out that Tado (who do smart radiator valves) noted from a study, which drew from their data, that the UK sucks at insulation, losing heat up to three times faster than other European neighbours[0].
[0] https://www.tado.com/en-gb/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-to-...
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated nor am I a customer of Tado. Also, I'm British and I just felt like commenting here because it felt relevant.
Now it makes sense to me. I live in central continental Europe but spent a month or so in the UK a couple years ago, and one of my immediate impressions was how much colder it felt inside buildings. The buildings themselves seemed thinner and made of less dense materials as well.
Right. My friend said to me, after visiting his sister and brother-in-law in the UK that "it's incredible, the houses there are made of shit". Sounds harsh and I reprimanded him but I think there's something to it.
I wonder if that correlates with the average age of houses. The UK has a lot of buildings that are well over 100 years old that can only be insulated by stuffing cavity walls full of an insulating material. My house is 126 years old, and despite my best efforts it's still terrible.
I would suspect so, but a lot of the stock since then isn't that much better. There was a lot of building up to the 60s but they weren't exactly well regarded for quality. And new builds have a bad reputation now for similar reasons, as even though the minimum standards have risen they're still not particularly great (and especially not a very good tradeoff between quality and cost).
I'm very surprised to hear that such an old house has cavity walls. I would expect solid brick walls in Flemish bond. My house is 1970 and has them, they were much more common after the war.
Old Victorian terraces in the North East where I live have them because they were built by very wealthy shipyard owners so they could afford to put up high quality housing, and they needed something to keep out the damp. Cavity walls made from two layers of brick with iron ties were the solution.
Blimey, NE weather and on the water as well, that's a tough heating/insulation job!