Future-proof your home with our top 4 energy-efficient house refurbishment tips
Upgrading your home and undergoing an energy-efficient house refurbishment is both cost-effective and great for your carbon footprint. Whether you’re currently making home improvements and would like some top tips for energy efficiency, or you’re still thinking about undergoing an eco-refurbishment, we have compiled a short guide to help you get started on making energy-efficient home improvements.
There are three crucial aspects to achieving an energy-efficient home refurbishment and design: insulation, air quality, and heating & cooling. With these three main components in place, you can make greener choices when renovating your house. We’ll explore some of these aspects in more detail below.
Insulation
Non-insulated walls let out about a third of all heat in our homes. So installing extra wall insulation in your refurbishment, in addition to insulation in your loft, means that those colder rooms (the ones that you dread to spend any additional time in) become warmer. It is always important to remember sufficient ventilation is needed, and installing extra insulation in your home may even alleviate causes of damp and mould. Not only does additional insulation provide warmth, it also comes with great savings on your heating bills.
Renewable energy
Have you thought about installing solar panels to your roof or loft conversion? Solar panels are most effective on south-facing roofs at a pitch of around 30 degrees. The incentives for installing them include claiming Feed-in Tariff payments, meaning that any electricity you generated but did not use will be exported back to the grid. This offers a reasonable payback on your solar installation, all of which helps reduce your energy bills and household carbon footprint.
Lighting
The biggest element to take into consideration is making the best use of natural daylight. With a conscious effort to reduce the amount of artificial light in your property. Naturally, there are some rooms or spaces with your home where this can’t be avoided, like bathrooms and hallways. Artificial light is both inefficient and wasteful and if you can re-design the lighting layout in your home, this is a must.
If you have swapped certain artificial lights in your home to more energy-efficient types or alternatives, you can also use a smart device or mobile phone to set timers and have more control. For example, you could create timers for occupancy control when you know certain rooms will be used, having different timed delays for individual rooms. You could even set a control where lights automatically switch off if no one has been detected in a while.
Heating and cooling
If you don’t already have one, it is worth investing in a room thermostat, programmer, thermostatic radiator valve or smart alternative. A smart thermostat will allow you to better control your home’s temperature, heating and sometimes the hot water all from your mobile phone or tablet device.
Contact us
If you’re interested in local builder services, such as home extensions, conversions or renovations, please contact Cobbydale Construction Ltd today. You can call us on 01535 653 530 or fill out our online enquiry form.