Preparing your home for winter
Maintain a warm home…
With the UK gearing up for winter and snow already sighted in certain areas, we’re going to take a look at how you can ensure a warm home throughout these cold winter months. It may shock many homeowners to learn how much heat can escape your home and in the winter, it is crucial to retain as much heat as you can within your home. An Air Source Heat Pump is a fantastic way to heat your home cheaply and effectively throughout the colder months of the year, especially since they can operate extremely well in colder temperatures. However, these are steps that all of us can take to make our home warmer and put less strain on whatever heating system we have.
Pipes and radiators…
The First step that we’re going to look at in today’s article is insulating your pipes. This is a cheap and inexpensive way to retain the heat in the water flowing around your house. You can find pipe insulation foam from most DIY shops. Simply find the correct size and slip it around your pipes, you would be surprised at how much heat you can retain. It may also be worth insulating your condensate waste pipe, this can help to prevent it from freezing in the colder winter temperatures and causing damage to your boiler.
Our next tip is to install draft excluders around your home. Draft excluding your doors, windows and any holes in your wall is cheap and easily done yourself. This can save you an average of £25 a year in energy bills and will retain a noticeable amount of heat. If you have a chimney which is not in use, then you may wish to consider draft excluding it as well. This could save you an extra £20 a year on your energy bills. Another great step you can take is to install reflective radiator panels. These are shiny panels that fit on the back wall of your radiator. Once installed, they will reflect heat back into the room instead of it being absorbed by the external wall. This tip could save you around £19 a year on your energy bills.
Walls and lofts…
Our last tip is to insulate the walls of your home, this is the most effective step you can take to retain heat in your home although it’s best to enlist the help of a specialist instead of attempting the job yourself. If your home was built after the 1920s then the chances are that your external wall is comprised of two layers of brick with a gap in the middle. Wall insulation fills that gap with a special, heat-retaining foam. Insulating your walls can save you a massive £165 a year on your energy bills and put far less strain on your heating system in the winter months. You could also go a step further and consider insulating your loft to a more modern standard. This can save you an average of £14 a year and will provide a noticeable difference to your home’s temperature.
Following the above steps will ensure that your home is warm enough to last you through the winter months efficiently without costing you a small fortune on your heating bills.
