How To Improve The Energy Efficiency Of Your Home

As the winter months approach, this is a good time to assess the energy efficiency of your home and make sure it’s a healthy environment for you all to live and work.

There are three stages to look at when assessing the energy consumption in your home:

• Draught proofing of doors and windows
• Can you improve the insulation in your floors, walls, or roof?
• Do you have good controls on your heating system? Does it need renewing?
• Do you have an efficient boiler, which is regularly maintained?

Simple things to look at are added draught tape around your windows and doors, replace old dirty compressed loft insulation, change your draughty letter box, fill the gaps around pipes through external walls, and seal the gap between the skirting board and floor.

A new government endorsed advice web site ’Simple Energy Advice’ www.simpleenergyadvice.org.uk  has recently been launched offering easy to follow advise on how to save on energy costs and make home improvements to improve the warmth of your home. The website has an easy to follow questionnaire that can tell you, based on the type of property you live in, what improvements would be of most benefit and what government grants are available to help.

Also, the new Green Homes Grant scheme that was to run until March 2021 was recently extended for a further year in the Prime Minister’s ‘Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’.  The scheme offers to fund up to two thirds of the cost of home improvements up to £5,000. Low-income households will be able to receive vouchers covering 100% of the costs up to £10,000. It is available to home owners, including owner occupiers and social/private landlords to install one of the following primary measures:

• Solid wall, underfloor, cavity wall or roof insulation
• Air source or ground source heat pump
• Solar thermal

If one of these primary measures is installed the scheme will also give assistance with secondary measures which are:

• Draught proofing windows and doors
• Double/Triple glazing (where replacing single glazing)
• Secondary glazing ( in addition to single glazing)
• Upgrading to Energy efficient replacement doors
• Hot water tank thermostats
• Hot water tank insulation
• Heating controls

The scheme offers a list of approved TrustMark and MCS registered tradespeople in your local area to carry out the work. So when you are having that ‘heated discussion’ with your family or home mates this month about the heating and what temperature and how long to put it on for, give a thought to how you might make some changes to save money and help the planet at the same time.

When designing new homes for our clients at Lister Haigh we always consider what opportunities there are on each site for renewable energy systems. There is a great pool of companies and experience in the region to keep our knowledge up to date. Call 01423 860322 for more details.