Wrap up warm for winter

Once a month we receive a postcard from Carbon Watchers about an area to focus on for that month.

In the middle of December we received a card telling us to 'wrap up warm for winter'. It included tips about cavity wall insulation, loft insulation etc.

Last year we had cavity wall insulation put in. Our loft has been converted into our bedroom, so now we have a tiny loft space. We do have SOME insulation in there, but you won't catch me going up there - places full of spiders and cobwebs are not my favourite places to hang out. I'll ask DH how much is up there when he puts the Christmas decorations away.

During December, we did a couple of measures of our own. Firstly we draught proofed the porch door and I can't begin to tell you what a massive difference this has made to the warmth of our house! We'd been playing with the idea of hanging a thick curtain behind it for months, but thought it would get in the way of the stairs and be inconvenient. When the cavity wall insulation was done, the people gave us enough draft proofing to do one door, so we actually used it and I wish we did it months ago!

In addition, we had some polystyrene sheets in the garage. DH crawled up the side of our bedroom from the loft and filled it with these sheets. For the past week, the temperature has been below freezing every night and we have not needed to put the electric convector heater on in the room before going to bed. This is a HUGE difference, as we were having to put the heater on for 15 minutes before we could bear to go up to bed!

Another goal for us will be to draught proof the back door and we've also had a couple of quote for double glazing, which we may consider putting in next Summer if we can save up enough money.

We have blankets lining the curtains in our conservatory, which we close at dusk. Unfortunately, the curtains are rotting due to UV damage, so we might need to do a repair job later in the year.

I did the Home and Energy check on the EST site and I'll write more about that in another post. I was not very impressed with our results I have to admit!