Properly insulating your home will keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter, plus will save you money all year round. With the cost of fuel continuing to rise you can’t afford not to make your property more efficient. You’d be amazed how much energy is lost through your loft, walls, pipes, doors and windows in a house with poor insulation. To combat this here is how you can reduce your energy costs:
Fit cavity wall insulation
UK properties with solid walls with no cavity can still insulate their home by either fitting insulation internally to the inside walls of their home (thereby slightly reducing the floor area) or externally to outside brickwork, render or cladding (which will affect the aesthetics of the property). This type of insulation for solid walls is a bit like a bobble hat, it may not look great, but it keeps you warm!
The most common and most effective way to reduce heat loss from the exterior sides of properties is cavity wall insulation. Cavity wall insulation should be in conjunction with double glazing and loft insulation, as if all the windows and all the doors are not insulated as well as the loft,  any part insulation is only part of the solution, rather than the whole package.
Install double glazing throughout
Fitting double glazing or even better still, triple glazing will significantly reduce heat loss through windows and doors. After all, double glazed windows are basically just a layer of gas trapped between two sheets of glass. Typically the gas used in double glazing is one like Low E Argon which conducts heat much slower than glass, which when combined with a warm edge spacer and special softcoat glass helps keeps your home warm and also reduces noise pollution.
Lay floor insulation
Heat can be lost through concrete floors, stone floors or gaps between standard floorboards. Any part of a home that is not insulated will be exposed the more the rest of the property is properly insulated. For example if you have bare floorboards, these are not insulated. Heat travels directly from your home into whatever type of floor you have, and from the floor then on into the ground. Whatever type of floor you have you can insulate it by fitting the appropriate products.
Install roof insulation
One of the fastest and effective ways to insulate a home is by insulating the loft, as a huge amount of heat and energy is lost through the roof, a bit like the amount of body heat is lost in winter when we do not wear a woolly hat!. Decent quality loft insulation will last, and whilst there are a lot of products on the market lamb’s wool is probably the best. This type of product is expensive but designed and manufactured to last.
Draft proof your home
If you can feel cold draught air coming in then it means that warm air can get out. Drafts are a bit like water finding the weakest spot to seep through, as they can get in all over the place; from holes in windows to cracks in doors. There are a lot of products that can help reduce draughts such as brushes, foams and glues, but finding all the holes can be half the task. Rather than your home looking like a sticking plaster, fit “A” rated double glazing and job done.
Insulate your hot water pipes
It may be obvious to lag pipes, but sometimes get forgotten. It is worth insulating any exposed cold water pipes to stop them freezing up in Winter, as well as insulating all the hot water pipes running throughout the house. Access to some of these may be difficult, but the rewards will be worth the effort, and prevent you ever having burst pipes.
If done properly home insulation will dramatically reduce your energy bills, putting you back in charge of controlling the internal temperature of your home. An insulated property will warm up much faster using less energy when the heating is turned on, saving both energy and money. Many of the smaller insulation jobs can be done D.I.Y. but the more difficult ones like double glazing and cavity wall insulation are worth leaving to the experienced professionals with a proven track record and established local reputation.
