Home insulation is becoming increasingly important for properties in the UK and acts as an excellent way to reduce energy bills and help with the rising problems of global warming. Without adequate insulation in place your home will be leaking heat and adding hundreds of pounds to your dual fuel bill.

By insulating your property, you’ll essentially be protecting it from the cold weather. As you would expect, this has a greater effect in winter when temperatures drop. As your boiler produces heat, you won’t want this escaping to the elements. Home insulation forms a barrier between your home and the outside, locking warmth in. The good news is, many insulation measures can pay for themselves in energy saved, within just a few years.

Other than efficient lighting, home insulation has the best return of all energy efficiency improvements you could make to the property. With each improvement undertaken, you’ll also be adding to the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which states how energy efficient a property is. Ratings range from A to G, with A the most efficient. This EPC can be crucial when selling your home.

Around the property there are typically five different ways heat can be lost to the outside world:

Conduction: Conduction is the movement of heat through solid materials. In your home this could be a brick wall or the windows.

Radiation: Radiation heat is what you’d feel when standing next to a radiator. An infrared photo of your home would show where heat is being lost.

Convection: Convection is the scientific term for warm water or air rising. This is why loft insulation is an important home insulation measure.

Air movement: Otherwise known as draughts, this common household heat loss removes warm air from the property and allows cold air inside.

Evaporation: Perhaps not often associated with heat loss, evaporating water can cool your home.

What Home Insulation Measures are Available?

So, as mentioned above, home insulation will have a significant bearing on the temperature of your property and how much you pay on energy bills. With that said though, there are plenty of ways you can go about implementing insulation.

This includes the following:

• Replacement windows

One of the better home insulation measures in term of reducing heat loss is replacement windows. Double glazing or triple glazing helps to cut heat loss by using innovative technology to lock heat inside.

These windows are manufactured with multiple panes of glass, separated by an energy efficient gas spacer. This spacer – typically Argon, Xenon or Krypton, is motionless (inert) and as such, heat can’t pass through and exit your home. Instead, it’s trapped inside.

The following table shows the annual financial savings achievable by installing double glazed windows, according to the Energy Saving Trust. This would be to replace single paned, inefficient units.

• Cavity &am; solid wall insulation

Another popular home efficiency measure is wall insulation, be it either cavity wall or solid wall insulation. Poorly insulated walls are one of the biggest culprits of heat loss and can lose up to a third of the warmth produced in your property.

Your home will either have cavity or solid walls. Therefore, this will impact the insulation measure you choose. Properties built before 1920 will typically have solid walls, whilst those built after will benefit from cavity.

Solid walls are prone to losing more heat than their cavity counterparts and to solve this problem, an insulating barrier can be fixed to the internal or external wall. With cavity walls, it’s the space between the inside and outside bricklayer that is filled with insulating foam, to prevent heat escaping.

The following tables highlight the savings achievable with both solid wall and cavity wall insulation:

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• Floor insulation

Another method to consider in the fight against heat loss is floor insulation. This is one of the techniques not often considered, as homeowners wouldn’t expect heat to transfer through the floor. However, this can be a significant problem and as such, should be sufficiently dealt with.

Fortunately, a competent DIYer should be able to fit floor insulation and care would only need to be taken to ensure airbricks are not blocked off, so ventilation remains adequate. There is insulation available for both solid floors and floorboards. Therefore, you have separate insulation on offer.

See the two tables below for a better idea of the savings you can make with floor insulation:

 

• Loft insulation

Then there is loft insulation – a heat loss prevention technique which strikes right at the heart of the problem. Heat typically rises and as such, much warmth can be lost through an uninsulated loft or attic space.

Loft insulation helps to solve this problem and whether your loft is accessible or not, you’ll be able to have insulation installed. There are two forms of insulation available for the loft. The first is mineral wool, which is installed between the joists in your loft. Then there’s insulation that is blown into the space (best for when the loft is difficult to access).

You can save a small fortune with loft insulation, as shown by the table below: