Insulation

A Clear Business Case

One of the reasons the UK is being hit particularly badly by the energy crisis is because our homes are some of the worst insulated in Europe.

The chart on the right shows we are 3x worse than Germany.

This means our homes use far more energy to keep warm.

Sadly insulation has got a bit of a bad name for some due to the “strange” actions of the insulate Britain group who seem to want to clue themselves to stuff. While I don’t agree with their approach the intention of getting homes better insulated makes sense.

There is some great advice on how you can improve your home’s insulation by the Energy Savings Trust. I’ve recently been up in my loft increasing the insulation…but watch your footing…

I also heard good things from one of my neighbors who used the services of the Community organisation called the CHEESE project, who did a very in-depth heat loss survey and advice. We are looking at how we might do this on a larger scale as part of our community energy initiative.

The business case of improving the insulation of your home is even stronger with current energy prices. The Return on Investment (ROI) can be quick, I recon my improved loft insulation will pay back within 1-2 years and it helps cut my CO2 footprint.

I find it strange that the government is doing nothing to tackle improving insulation – they are now directly paying for the inefficiency of UK homes as they are paying much of the bill, (well actually us, as taxpayers will need to repay the huge government loan).

If our government had much real business sense they would invest in improving insulation, particularly in low-income homes that may not be able to afford to do it themselves. The ROI would be very quick and reduce the amount of money they (we) are borrowing.