Home Improvement Blog

Many houses fall well below the minimum thermal insulation standars set under building regulations. Although some forms of insulation should be carried out by a professional, there is still much that can be done by the home handyman.

Before you begin the process of keeping heat inside where it belongs, it is useful to understand the ways in which heat is lost from the house. The amount of the heat lost does depend on the nature of the building, its aspect and exposure to winds -  and figures vary form the house to house.

In a typical uninsulated house approximately one quarter is lost through the roof, one third through the walls, one tenth through the doors, one fifth through the windows and one sixth through the floors. After insulation these losses can be cut down to approximately one twentieth, one tenth, one twentieth, one ninth and one tenth respectively.

So although insulation does not prevent all the heat escaping, it substantially reduces the amount of loss and correspondingly diminishes that size of your heating bills. It shortens the time it takes to heat a room and enables you to keep down the number size of radiators and the size of the boiler – or to install a less powerfull and therefore less expensive central heating system around the  home.

Forms of insulation vary from the simple rubber strip draught excluder on your door to insulating boards lining the walls. What you decide to do will depend on the amount of time and money you have available; but the more throughly you carry out the job, the greater the rewards will be in terms of comfort and eventual savings, which will well repay the initial expense and effort.

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