The first consideration should be to examine your best ways to keep that expensive home heat in. But first, if you can afford it, consider having your home checked out by an expert who can detect and measure where your heat is escaping and which holes need to be plugged.
Assuming you live in a climate where your home gets cold and you need to switch on heating of some kind to stay warm, you should examine all your options to retain any heat you generate and pay for. The writer lives in a country where the last two winters have seen temperatures down as far as -17 degrees centigrade. For many homes that meant their heating systems were running most of the night and during the day also. Like night follows day, pay day came later in the form of exorbitant heating bills!
To conserve your homes heat, the first place to look at is the roof attic because the majority of your home's heat rises upwards and left uninsulated will escape out through the roof. Your roof attic can be easily insulated by installing a relatively low cost insulation commonly called Rockwool which comes in rolls. This is installed between the rafters and will make a sizable difference in making your home warmer. The thicker the wool applied the better the insulation result.
The next biggest area for heat to escape is out your external walls. It is said that almost a third of your home's heat escapes out through uninsulated or badly insulated walls. Some homes have good insulation built in during the construction stage but alas, millions of homes built before the cost and scarcity of heating fuels became an issue, had little or no insulation installed and are highly inefficient to heat.
You basically have three options to cut down heat loss out through your walls namely…
External insulation - a layer of insulation attached to the outside walls of your home. This 'skin' can be up to 200mm / 8" thick and usually has a rendered finish.
Insulated plasterboard - a layer of insulation attached to a gypsum board attached to the inside of your walls. The most popular thickness applied is about 80mm / 3" and is very effective at retaining your room's heat. The only downside is you lose some room space and that might be an issue if your room is small to begin with. Costs will be around €550 for a small room.
If you are on a tight budget or cannot afford to lose room space, the lowest cost insulation method of all is Insulating paint, a recent well proven innovation that is applied like any interior emulsion / latex to the inside of the walls and indeed the ceiling also. If you can use a paint brush or roller, you can apply the insulating paint yourself which means more savings. Leading quality brands retail for around £60 / €75 per 5 litre, enough for two coats in a small bedroom. Without doubt, insulating paint is the lowest cost way to block the heat from escaping out through your home's walls and ceilings.
The rule of thumb with any home insulation is… buy the best you can afford.
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B C Igoe is the founder and managing director of Dublin EU based Igoe International Ltd a DIY / home maintenance product company, founded 1978. The company specializes in the distribution of innovative, high quality, time & labour saving painting products sourced world-wide. Find more about their very popular insulating paint and other painting products or visit their website=> http://www.igoe.ie
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