It’s all well and good adding insulation to your home, but unless you do it effectively, you could wind up wasting your money, as well as not reducing your carbon emissions as effectively as you could. In order to ensure your home is being effectively insulated, please read the guide provided below, in order to maximise your use of insulation and save some all important money on your energy bills and bring down your carbon footprint.
Effectively insulate the walls
Roughly one third of all the heat generated in your home is lost through uninsulated walls. On top of this, wall insulation is the easiest and least invasive insulation to install. Firstly, you need to establish whether your home has cavity walls or solid walls. A cavity wall usually has an even pattern with all of the bricks laid lengthways. A solid wall generally has an alternating pattern, with all of the bricks being different sizes.
Both kinds of insulation can be installed from the outside of your home, and should be installed by a professional. The Energy Saving Trust recommends that you get at least three quotes, by simply putting “cavity wall insulation near me” into Google and researching installers.
Effectively insulate the roof
There are lots of similarities between the roof of our house and our head, mainly that we lose a lot of heat from there. In fact, 25% of the heat a home produces can be lost through an uninsulated roof.
It should be really easy to insulate your attic, as long as it’s easily accessible and there is no damp or condensation. You could even do it yourself if you felt like it! All you need to do is roll out the insulation between the joists, then add a second layer to cover the joists and make up the insulation to the required depth. On average, installing loft insulation will save a semi-detached house £165 a year on their energy bills, reducing their carbon footprint by around 580kg a year.
Effectively insulate the floor
Usually, you only need to insulate the ground floor of your property. Once you have worked out what kind of flooring you have, you can work out how to insulate things. Concrete floors can be insulated by laying rigid insulation boards on top of the existing floor, while wooden floors can be insulated by lifting the floorboards and laying down mineral wool insulation. Installing this kind of insulation can save you around £50 a year.
A quick fix however, is to stop heat escaping into the ground by sealing gaps in the floor and skirting boards. All you need to do is buy a tube of sealant from a local DIY store. You could also consider having rugs or carpets installed in your home, to reduce the draft.
The pipes and tanks
Finally, if you still run a hot water tank, make sure you insulate that to keep the water hotter for longer. Moreover, be sure to insulate your pipes so that they don’t freeze over in the winter, causing your boiler to lose pressure.
Leave a Reply