Woolly smoke!

AN eco-friendly draught excluder made of felted Herdwick wool has won a Queen’s Award for innovation. The blocker ‘lodges in the throat of redundant chimneys’, according to inventor Sally Phillips of Chimney Sheep. ‘It stops warm air from escaping, prevents cold air from getting in, significantly cuts down on cold draughts and saves about 5% of household heating bills.’

A former ecologist, Miss Phillips operated Natural England’s Bat Helpline, which gave her the idea for her product. ‘Very often, householders would report that a bat had got in via the chimney. I did some research and found that there are more than 11 million homes in the UK with open chimneys. All those open chimneys seemed like a wicked waste of energy to me. I knew that sheep wool was a natural insulator and was breathable, so it seemed like a no-brainer to develop a chimney blocker made of sheep wool.’

Her design is deliberately simple, ‘so that it is easy to understand and easy to use’ and the award for innovation shows this approach paid off. ‘It means a lot to us.’