Improving Energy Efficiency in Your Home
Following on from our guide on wall insulation, we take a look at other ways to improve your home and help lower your energy bills.
With Ofgem raising the energy price cap, energy bills at an all-time high and future price rises expected. We take a look further on from our Insulating Your Walls Blog to look at ways to keep your energy bills down and save money. We’ve continued to compile some great tips and things to consider for your home. Data and estimates here are provided thanks to the Energy Saving Trust.
LED & Low Energy Lightbulbs
A simple tip that you’ve probably seen everywhere but it really does have benefits. Replacing old lightbulbs with new LED bulbs can help cut down on your electricity usage and will also last longer than their older, inefficient counterparts.
Getting into good habits with making sure lights and other appliances are switched off can also add up greatly across a year and lead to some significant savings, especially with more energy bill rises on the horizon.
LED Lightbulbs use less energy and can last years! This means the savings can really add up!
Loft Insulation
A quarter of the heat is lost through the roof in an uninsulated home. Although just as it is with walls, it’s important to know which kind of roof insulation you want, and what suits your property best.
Basic loft insulation can be completed cost effectively. This involves mineral wool insulation being laid between the beams that make up the floor of the loft (known as the joists). Then another layer is added at right angles to cover up those joists and create the required depth of insulation. In addition to this an installer will take special care to fully insulate pipes, water tanks and the loft hatch to ensure correct processes are followed. This will also include safely covering any recessed lighting in the loft to prevent the risk of fire. This type of insulation is known as a “cold loft” or “cold roof”.
The alternative way to insulate a loft/roof area is known as a “warm loft”. This is achieved by insulating at the pitched beams of the roof known as the rafters. This can be more expensive to completed however keeps your loft warm and allows for it to be used for storage or even as its own area of the property. This insulation should only be fitted by specialists to ensure it is done correctly.
If your property has a roof room or converted loft then it will require specialist room in roof insulation. This works in a similar way to having a warm loft by insulating at the rafters but will also involve adding a layer of plasterboard to the inside of the insulation.
Where to Start?
Not sure where to begin or what your house needs? Getting an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) done by one of our qualified Domestic Energy Assessors is a great place to start. This will help gather get all the information on the current state of your property, the levels of insulation and help provide a snapshot on where to begin with improvements. The EPC will also help to show you some potential savings and suggestions too!
Your EPC will display the current Energy Rating and outline the potential it has
Floor Insulation
Floor insulation is a great way to start on your project to having a warmer and more cost-efficient home. This method of insulation saves between £50 and £130 a year depending on your property and based on current prices. As energy bills continue to increase these savings values will increase as a result due to the higher cost of energy.
There’s typically only two ways to go about floor insulation and it’s entirely reliant on if you have solid concrete or suspended timber floors.
Solid concrete floors just require rigid insulation to be laid on top of it, whereas suspended timber floors are insulated by fitting mineral wool in netting fixed between the joists.
The downside to floor insulation is that this can sometimes be quite disruptive to install and is not always easy to do on some properties. An example of this is where a timber floor cannot be easily accessed from underneath to insulate. We always recommend seeking out a specialist to survey your property and give a fair estimate for what the work would include.
How we can help
As a qualified Trustmark installer, we’re experienced in a wide range of insulation and have worked on hundreds of properties over our years of trading. If you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do to help improve your property or if you’re interested in getting a quote then get in touch and our team will be on hand to assist.
