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Constantly battling that laundry pile, making sure everyone is happy with dinner, and mounting energy bills – just a few of our daily haunts in the home. Thankfully, we can help with the third in that list. If you’ve noticed a chill in your home, it’s probably a sign that your home is leaking heat.

Being able to identify signs that your home is leaking heat enables you to act to trap that heat. In turn, you should see a pretty sizeable reduction in your heating bills.

Often, a poorly heated home is down to the lack of insulation; unless you’ve added extra insulation to your home, chances are that you do not have enough. Telltale signs are feeling cold. Astoundingly, British households waste as much as £500 million in heating costs due to cracks in the roofs and walls of poorly insulated homes.

High energy bills

With that astronomical figure in mind, a high energy bill may be one clue that your home is failing to keep heat. Assess your energy bills of the last few years to determine whether there is any huge spikes. It may be that the blow-in insulation in the loft and walls has settled, meaning that this insulation is now less effective. If your heating and cooling facilities are working overtime, it’s possible that you will have not noticed any temperature shifts, though your provider certainly will have.

Cold rooms

That said, it may be that you do notice changes in temperature in your home. If you find that certain rooms are drastically colder or hotter than others, it’s almost a given that your home is leaking heat due to poor insulation. This can happen regardless of how well-ventilated rooms are. Ensure that all areas of your home are properly insulated.

Wet or damp insulation 

If you conduct a survey of your insulation and notice that it’s wet, then your home is certainly likely to be losing heat. This is often in the case of fibreglass insulation, as such material is susceptible to damp from leaks. If this damp does arise, the insulation will compress and become far less effective.

Solutions

Thankfully, there are many solutions to solving the problem of leaking heat. Such solutions extend to vapour proof insulation, double glazed windows and composite doors. The implementation of a wooden stove alongside your back boiler can also prove advantageous.

Vapour proof insulation such as multi foil will keep damp away from the insulation of your home and keep your house warm. This is because there are multiple external layers for a control layer. If this insulation is installed correctly and properly sealed, your heating bills should reduce rather a lot.

Meanwhile, composite doors carry a significantly low U-value and, therefore, exceed the necessary thermal standard. If integrated into the entrance of your home, such a door will keep the weather where it belongs – on the outside. This will lead to not only a warmer home but also a securer one – as well as, even more pleasingly, much more affordable energy costs.

Elliot Preece