Steps you can take to upgrade your home

UPGRADING your home might seem like a daunting prospect but by breaking it up into different sections, it can be much more manageable. Upgrading the energy efficiency of your home has many benefits. Not only will you experience a warmer, cosier home but you will also reap the benefits of reduced energy bills.

One simple way in which you can choose to upgrade your home is through the installation of a wood burning stove. Modern room heating stoves are highly efficient when compared to a traditional open are as they provide three times the heat and use only a quarter of the fuel.

A wood burning stove with a minimum effciency of 70 per cent may be considered an appropriate element of the whole house solution that is proposed for your home.

The installation of the wood burning stove can be carried out within a single day, usually by two persons. As well as removing the existing fire grate and surround, it will be necessary to install a new metal flue liner in your existing chimney.

Another area that you can look at to improve the energy efficiency of your is through floor insulation. Similarly to heat being lost through the walls, up to 10 per cent of heat is also lost through our floors. As with attic and walls, this heat loss can be reduced by insulating the doors so that more heat is retained inside your home

Each home will be different and each will require different approaches; this will needed depend on a number of factors including whether your home has a solid ground floor, a suspended concrete floor or a suspended timber floor. In some cases it may be possible to lay insulation on top of the existing construction or in other cases it will be necessary to fit insulation to the underside of the concrete or timber structure.