Insulating your home is a great way of cutting down your heating bills and of reducing your carbon footprint. Some jobs, such as cavity wall insulation, are best left to the professionals, but there are plenty of other things that you can do for yourself. All you have to do is identify the areas where cold air is coming in and warm air escaping, and then seal them up.
You may notice a draught coming in around your front door, and possibly the back door too. Even the letterbox can let you down in cold weather. Furthermore, the gap that you invariably find at the bottom of your internal doors means that unless each room in your house is heated to the same degree, heat is going to migrate from the warmer areas to the colder ones.
In the case of the external doors, the cheapest solution is to fit draught proofing strips around their edges. For less than ten pounds you can buy enough rubber or foam seal to go around both doors, and perhaps have some left over for your windows. An old coat or blanket at the bottom of your internal doors will keep a room snug, although you can also buy cheap draught excluders that move with the door and so don't have to be continually adjusted.
Windows are another way for draughts to sneak into your house, forcing their way in through the gap between window and frame. Sash windows can be particularly vulnerable when it comes to letting in cold air.
Again, you can attach the same type of foam or brush strips to your opening windows as you can to your doors. Brush seal is better for sash windows, although there are other sealing products that are specifically designed for them. Also inexpensive and effective are the glazing films that attach to your window frames with double sided tape. More expensive, but also more sophisticated, are the glazing panels fitted with magnetic tape. Both types of glazing are ideal for fixed windows.
When it comes to home insulation, floors can be overlooked; however, one that is suspended or built over an unheated basement or garage can be responsible for significant heat loss. Spaces between skirting board and floor should not be ignored either.
Rugs and carpets are the obvious way of covering up gaps between floorboards, but you can also buy rolls of flexible moulding to insert into them. This moulding can also be used to fill the spaces between floor and skirting boards.
None of these measures are particularly expensive nor difficult to carry out. It is estimated that a typical house loses around 20 per cent of its heat through its doors and windows and 10 per cent through its floor, so insulation of these areas should make a noticeable difference to the temperature inside your house. 25 per cent of a house's heat is thought to be lost through the roof, so, if you are fairly handy at DIY, you could even install your own loft insulation.
You may notice a draught coming in around your front door, and possibly the back door too. Even the letterbox can let you down in cold weather. Furthermore, the gap that you invariably find at the bottom of your internal doors means that unless each room in your house is heated to the same degree, heat is going to migrate from the warmer areas to the colder ones.
In the case of the external doors, the cheapest solution is to fit draught proofing strips around their edges. For less than ten pounds you can buy enough rubber or foam seal to go around both doors, and perhaps have some left over for your windows. An old coat or blanket at the bottom of your internal doors will keep a room snug, although you can also buy cheap draught excluders that move with the door and so don't have to be continually adjusted.
Windows are another way for draughts to sneak into your house, forcing their way in through the gap between window and frame. Sash windows can be particularly vulnerable when it comes to letting in cold air.
Again, you can attach the same type of foam or brush strips to your opening windows as you can to your doors. Brush seal is better for sash windows, although there are other sealing products that are specifically designed for them. Also inexpensive and effective are the glazing films that attach to your window frames with double sided tape. More expensive, but also more sophisticated, are the glazing panels fitted with magnetic tape. Both types of glazing are ideal for fixed windows.
When it comes to home insulation, floors can be overlooked; however, one that is suspended or built over an unheated basement or garage can be responsible for significant heat loss. Spaces between skirting board and floor should not be ignored either.
Rugs and carpets are the obvious way of covering up gaps between floorboards, but you can also buy rolls of flexible moulding to insert into them. This moulding can also be used to fill the spaces between floor and skirting boards.
None of these measures are particularly expensive nor difficult to carry out. It is estimated that a typical house loses around 20 per cent of its heat through its doors and windows and 10 per cent through its floor, so insulation of these areas should make a noticeable difference to the temperature inside your house. 25 per cent of a house's heat is thought to be lost through the roof, so, if you are fairly handy at DIY, you could even install your own loft insulation.
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