- Most people know that 25 per cent of an un-insulated home’s heat is lost through the roof, but a further third of all the heat lost is through the walls. British Gas estimates that £1 in every £4 spent on heating is lost because of poor insulation[1][1]. A hassle-free way to save energy and prevent money evaporating into thin air is to stop this heat escaping with cavity wall insulation
- Cavity wall insulation pays for itself in around two years, and it will typically save 15 per cent – or £115 – a year on your home’s fuel bills… year on year!
- Cavity wall insulation can also reduce your family’s carbon footprint by around 610kg a year. If every UK household suitable for cavity wall insulation installed it, we’d save a staggering £690 million and around 4 million tonnes of CO2 every year. That’s enough to fill 790,000 hot air balloons!
- A well-insulated house keeps the warmth exactly where you want it in the winter and the cool air exactly where you want it in summer: indoors. This means that the heating doesn’t need to be on as much, or as high, during the colder months, and homeowners can go easy on air-conditioning and fans in the hotter months
- Unlike loft insulation, which is easy to install yourself in just two-three hours, cavity wall insulation needs to be installed by a professional. Check that an installer is registered with either the National Insulation Association, the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency (which will also guarantee any work carried out for an impressive 25 years) or the British Board of Agrément, and has signed up to a code of professional practice
- Cavity wall insulation can be installed in a single day and isn’t disruptive or damaging to a house or garden. It is installed by drilling a series of small holes (just under one inch each in diameter) in the mortar between the bricks of a house, before blowing insulation through the holes until the gap or ‘cavity’ between the external and internal wall is completely filled. The holes will then be filled with matching mortar- no one will know a change has been made!
- The cost to have cavity wall insulation installed has never been lower, as it’s subsidised by the Government which aims to cut emissions from the UK’s homes by 29% by 2020.
- Subsidies can also be sought from the major energy suppliers, as they have a commitment to improving home energy efficiency under the Government’s CERT scheme. Even better, homeowners can apply for a subsidy from an energy supplier, even if they do not supply that home’s energy!
- The best way to find out if a house is suitable for cavity wall insulation is to find out how old it is. Cavity wall insulation is a great energy saving solution for properties built after 1920. If a home is older than this it probably won’t have cavity walls, so a different insulation solution, like solid wall insulation, may be more suitable. There are Government subsidies available for this, too, such as the Affordable Energy Grant, or the British Gas and EDF Energy Home Insulation Grants.
- If a home was built in the last ten years, it is likely that the cavity is already insulated, for which the owner should have been given a certificate when they moved in. Check out www.thinkinsulation.com for easy ways to make already-insulated properties even more energy efficient.
