This site will teach about reducing your bills.
Learn how insulation improves your bills!
Learn how heating affect your bills!
Other ways you can reduce your bills!
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This section will teach you about insulation
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One sign of good insulation is having even temperatures throughout your home. If different rooms have different temperatures – say, you freeze in the kitchen but feel too warm in your living room – that’s a clear sign your house is under-insulated.
Look at your home’s energy bills in the last few years to determine if there are huge increases. The blown-in insulation in the attics and walls may have settled, making the insulation less effective and possibly leading to areas that are not protected from cold temperatures. You may not notice extreme temperature shifts in your home if your heating or cooling units are working overtime, but you will notice your extreme energy bill. If wasted heat is escaping through your roof and walls, it’s time to replace your insulation.
Do the touch test. The interior ceilings, walls and floors in your home should feel warm and dry. When drywall and paneling inside a home feels damp or cold, there is not enough insulation. Alternatively, when touching an exterior wall, it should feel cold because insulation is keeping warm air inside a home.
Do you find that some rooms in your home are inexplicably colder or hotter than others no matter what you do? If those rooms are well ventilated, then the problem is probably poor insulation. These rooms are often above the garage or below the attic. That’s why it’s important to make sure all areas of your home are properly insulated. Heat and cool air can escape almost anywhere that doesn’t have insulation to stop its path.
During the winter months, drafts in certain areas of a home are caused by cool air entering around window frames and doorways. By having extra insulation added to these areas, you and your family can avoid having to cope with chilly drafts. Adding insulation will not only make your home feel less drafty, it will also save you on energy bills. Spray foam insulation seals and insulates and is good for cracks and crevices.
There is nothing worse than finding insects and rodents in your home! Critters can enter through tiny crevices and holes around doorways and windows. Unfortunately, these openings are also how cold air enters and warm air escapes. By adding insulation you can save on energy bills while protecting your home from vermin invasions.
Cavity walls were developed in the first half of the 20th century as a way to alleviate damp. Very simply, instead of having a 9 inch thick brick wall between the inside and outside of the house, a cavity wall has two layers of brick, with a gap in between. The gap can be anything from 20 to 100mm wide and therefore means that cavity walls tend to be much wider than a solid brick wall.
You can tell if your property is a cavity wall by looking at any exposed brickwork. If all the bricks are of even length (i.e. they have all been laid lengthways) you probably have a cavity wall. You can also look at the width of the wall – if it is more than 270mm chances are you have a cavity wall.
A solid brick wall is exactly like it sounds. Typically two bricks wide, with each row of bricks interlocking to form a completely solid 9 inch brick wall. There is no gap between the bricks to insulate, and so you must either add insulation to the inside of the property, or do so externally.
These sorts of walls can be identified by looking at the brickwork again. If the bricks alternate between a mixture of header (short) and stretcher (long) bricks, you have a solid wall. If the property is rendered, check the width of the wall – if it is less than 260mm, chances are that the wall is solid brick. The vast majority of properties built prior to the 30s will be solid brick.
Call us on 01752 477 117 or email us at support@plymouthenergycommunity.com
It is not a high priority to top up your insulation but if you are planning any work in the loft, top it up to at least 300mm
This section will teach you about heating
Advice on old storage heaters
Advice on newer storage heaters
Call us on 01752 477 117 or email us at support@plymouthenergycommunity.com
Broken Boiler Advise here
Old boiler advice
Advice about heating controls
Advice about first time central heating
This section will teach you about other ways to reduce your bills
