Home insulation
4 May 2007
Although it’s often the last thing on your mind, summer is a really good time to invest in insulating your home. The average annual heating bill is around £1000 a year and getting it sorted before the winter sets in can reduce this cost by half as well as helping the planet.
Each home in the UK produces around 4.5 tonnes of polluting CO2 each year due to heating rooms and water, but much of this energy is wasted. Why not take ten minutes to check your home and see what you could save? These are the things to look out for:
Outside walls can account for 35% of the heat lost from your home. If you have cavity walls, insulating them can reduce the vast majority of this heat loss. The process is quick and clean, and funding is available to help with the cost. If you’re not sure whether you have cavity walls, the Energy Advice Centre can help (see below).
Around 25% of your home’s heat is lost through the roof. If you have less than 10-12 inches of loft insulation, it’s a fairly easy job to top up what you already have.
We all like fresh air, but 15% of domestic heat is lost through draughts around ill-fitting doors and windows – fitting some simple draught proofing strips will halve this.
15% is also lost through the ground floor. A carpet with a thick underlay is quite effective but timber floors may be particularly draughty - sealing them around edges with mastic will help.
Finally, around 10% of heat is lost through windows. Replacing old single glazed windows with new double glazed units will halve that.
If your home needs all of these things doing, then it will be very expensive to heat at the moment. The good news is that most of these home improvements will quickly pay for themselves, saving you a small fortune in fuel bills.
Lastly, if your central heating boiler is over 15 years old, you could replace it with a new high efficiency boiler, cutting your bills by over a third.
If you have a well insulated house with a high efficiency boiler, congratulations! Your home is probably producing less than 3 tonnes of CO2 per year. If your house needs help, then get some free and impartial advice on what you can do from your local Energy Efficiency Advice Centre on 0800 512 012.
For natural insulation products see: www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk; www.naturaldeco.co.uk; www.naturalinsulation.co.uk
For a ‘green loan’ towards the cost of insulation, call Leamington Credit Union on 01926 833913