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Ways to Save Energy around your Home by using Insulation

Making your home more energy efficient and saving you money on your electricity bill.

Houses built without modern insulation systems are terribly inefficient at keeping your home at a constant temperature. i.e. heat out in the summer and heat in in the winter.

However there are a number of things that you can do to insulate the home making it more energy efficient.

Not only will you be doing yourself a favor by keeping healthier but you will also save money for yourself and your country.

If you like to take it a little further each time we save a bit of energy we save our planet.

Not a bad thing if we intend to stay here or leave something for our kids.

That is enough reasons for doing it, so how do we make our home more energy efficient?

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So how do we increase the energy efficiency of these areas?

Firstly as an interior designer or someone with a strong interest in interior design we need to understand some of the fundamentals about heat and energy. Heat has a tendancy to rise, it also has a tendany to flow to the coldest point until the temperature becomes even. To stop this flow we use things such as walls, ceilings and floors, however the materials that they are made of are not necessarily the best insulators so we add insulation to them. We are trying to stop or at the very least reduce thermal transmission. This is the flow of heat or cold.

To stop this thermal transmission we use items that have a high R (thermal resistance) rating or in layman's terms insulation. Generally the higher the R rating the higher the insulation value.

The amount of heat we lose in a home that isn't insulated is (up to) approximately as follows:

Chimney 12 %
a central floor to a double story building 42 %
walls 24 %
roof 24 %

Considering that 54% of all energy that goes into the home is for heating then any savings we can make in this area can save you quite a bit of money.

A very easy way is to stop as many drafts as possible. Not only will that make your home feel more comfortable but also stops the warm air escaping. Of course we still need fresh air and ventilation but things like drafty doors and windows are easily fixed with either mastic sealants (these are the liquid forms of often silicon based products that get squeezed into gaps and when dry feel rubbery), sticky backed foam tape (which comes in rolls and you cut it to length and stick it to the edges of a door or window opening to help seal it).

Drafts can pass easily throught the gaps around the door.

With old timber or steel windows see if the putty needs replacing. This is a relatively easy job to do and it will certainly help seal up and stop the drafts if its old and broken or even missing. Putty shrinks as it dries out and with age will crack and let drafts in.

Diagram and more information on house insulation.

More information on home insulation using glazing.

House insulation using drapery and energy efficient checklist.

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