Energy Saving Tips: Your Chimney

Heating a house is often a major expense. Especially if it's poorly insulated or drafty.

Fortunately, you can find all sorts of advise on insulating your home and stopping heat-loss round doors and such.

However, it's very rare to find any mention of what could be the biggest source of heat-loss in a fully insulated and draft-proofed house: The chimney.

Think about it: Every fireplace you have is an opening to the outside, so part of the heat from your radiators is going out your chimney (between 5% and 15% apparently!).

Some people have no use for their fireplaces, so they either block them off or cap the chimney. But, for those of us who still occasionally use them (probably because we're losing heat through them!), it would be a good idea to stop the heat-loss in between times.

There are one or two products out there that help with this:

Fireplace Heatsaver is a transparent perspex surround that completely encloses your fireplace sealing it off. But, at £80, it's quite expensive.

Chimsoc, Chimney Balloon, and Chimney Sheep are cheaper alternatives (between £16 and £25), and are things to block the chimney off just above the fireplace.

I've even heard of people using towels etc.

What you've always got to keep in mind is: Don't forget it's there when you DO light the fire; and make sure it's not flammable just in case you do!