Keep the cold out and the heat in. What I need to do.
Many, many people tend to dread the arrival of winter every year. The sole reason for this dread is the fact that, for a lot of people, winter is associated with discomfort. Feeling cold constantly, suffering from numerous illnesses, sniffling and coughing, etc.
However, all of these unpleasant things can be gotten rid of by taking a few measures to insulate your house and keep as much heat as possible inside. With just a little bit of effort, you can turn the colder season around and make it one of the most enjoyable times of the year!
The first step is to insulate your loft. This is one of the most important steps, as it has been proven that a house without loft insulation loses up to a quarter of its heat through the roof, which is a considerable amount. The great thing about loft insulation is that, once it is done, there is little need for any kind of maintenance, and it can last for several decades!
Loft insulation involves laying down insulation blankets across the roof, using materials such as glass, mineral fibre or foil-backed felt. Cork or straw can also be used by those that want a more environment friendly option.
The next step is to insulate the walls of your home. This is an essential step to keeping the heat inside, because up to a third of an uninsulated house's heat can be lost through the walls. Many modern houses already have insulated walls, but there are quite a few that do not--particularly houses that are more than a couple of decades old.
The first step to insulating the walls is to find out what type of walls your house has, as this needs to be taken into consideration before you decide which insulation option to go for. If you have cavity walls, which are walls which have gaps between them, you are in luck because these can be very easily insulated by placing an insulating material in the gaps.
Solid walls are a little bit trickier to work with, as it is not easy to insulate them by putting a material between them. Instead, you can consider placing some sort of insulation on either the external side of the wall or the internal side. This is a little more expensive than cavity wall insulation, but the results are not too different.
Other types of walls such as steel frame or timber frame walls are generally insulated in a manner similar to that for solid walls.
The next step to keeping the heat inside your house and keeping the cold out is to insulate your floor. Many people that wish to keep their house warm tend to neglect insulating the floors, as there seems to be a common misconception that heat cannot be lost through the floor. This is, in fact, not true. While less heat is lost through floors as compared to walls and roofs, uninsulated floors do cause a significant amount of heat loss and allow the cold to creep in.
If you live in a home with suspended timber walls, insulation can be done by laying the material between joists, which helps the house to retain more heat. If you live in a house with solid concrete walls, the insulation process will be a little more complicated, and you will need to get rigid insulation done.
There are a few other little ways by which you can aid the insulation process for the floor, such as using a sealant to reduce any gaps in the flooring and investing in a thick carpet to lay on the floors. These little things do make a difference in the heat retaining capacity of the floor as well.
The next step is to insulate the windows of your home. Heat is also lost from the windows, which can be particularly troublesome in the wintertime for people that live in houses with many very large windows. The most common method of insulating the windows is to get them double-glazed. This is generally not a very complicated or uncommon process, so it shouldn't be problematic for most people.
Another great way of insulating your house is that you can do without a lot of fuss is to purchase thick curtains. There are plenty of curtains available that have a thermal lining, and they are often quite affordable as well. If you want, you can even line them yourself with some sort of fleece material, and it should work just as well. You can place these curtains on the windows, or even on the doors, to keep the heat inside your home.
Sealing your doors is another small way of adding some extra insulation to your house. Doors that are not very well fitted and have gaps between the frame can lead to heat loss from the house, and it lets cold draughts inside, which is definitely not what you want in the chilly wintertime. The simple solution to this is to purchase a draft excluder from a hardware store and install it on the gaps of your door to seal it all up. Do not forget to cover up any locks or letterboxes as well. Even these tiny gaps can cause a cosy room to turn a little bit colder.
That sums up the best ways by which you can insulate your home. Insulating your house is not as difficult as some may make it out to be, as long as you do a little bit of research and figure out what type of insulation is best for your house. This is essential because lots of houses that were built differently and from different materials will require a specific method of insulation. However, if you just keep that in mind, the insulation process can easily be done, allowing you to look forward to winter every year.