How Do We Insulate Britain?
With this in mind we have written a few posts about insulating specific areas of your home. Check our Wall Insulation post. Our Roof and Floor Insulation posts will be updated asap.
Where Do We Lose Heat?
Heat Loss statistics in an average uninsulated UK home
35% Heat Lost through the walls
25% Heat Lost through the roof
25% Heat Lost through windows and doors
15% Heat Lost through the floor
Why is Insulating Our Homes So important?
We know that we produce a huge amount of so-called ‘Greenhouse Gases’ through energy production. These are gases like Carbon Dioxide CO2, Nitrous Oxide N2O and Methane CH4 and as they collect in our atmosphere they help to warm the planet. We know that this warming effect is having a serious and potentially devastating impact on our world. Average temperatures are increasing and with that sea levels are rising and extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and ferocity.
We know that we have to take action to stop this from continuing and if possible to reverse the damage already done. The solution is simple, stop producing carbon dioxide, methane and other harmful gases and remove all of the ‘extra’ greenhouse gases that we have added to the atmosphere. Our climate will settle back down into it’s normal warming cycle and we will have saved the planet for future generations. This is of course easier said than done.
How Will Insulating Our Homes Help?
One action that we can take is to change the way we produce energy and we are making steady progress in this area. In 2020 approx. 43% of our domestic energy needs were produced by renewables – wind, wave and solar. But as this energy production is reliant on natural resources it does fluctuate, in 2021 it dropped to 35%. This is a significant improvment that has happened within the last 20 years or so and these efforts continue. The UK Government has committed to producing all of our energy needs from 100% renewable sources by 2035. This is an ambitious target and we can help achieve this by looking at what we can do to reduce the amount of energy we use.
Energy Performance Certificates were introduced across Europe in 2008 in an attempt to make people become more aware of the energy that their homes use. What we have learned from them is that domestic properties in the UK are woefully inefficient when it comes to energy use. We are one of the poorest performing European nations when it comes to the energy efficiency of our homes and a key factor of this is insulation. The fact our homes are poorly insulated means that we need to use more energy to keep them warm than we otherwise would. By insulating our floors, walls and lofts we trap heat in our homes which means we don’t need to use as much energy to keep them warm. This will also save us money which is really important as electricity and gas prices continue to rise. Insulating doesn’t have to be expensive, some elements like loft insulation in a pitched roof are low cost and straight forward.
What Else Can We Do?
Insulating our homes is not the only thing we can do to reduce the amount of energy we use. We can also improve our space heating systems, water heating systems, lighting, windows… etc and we will talk about these in more posts on our Latest News page.