How We've Cut Our Heating Bill

Regular readers of this blog will know that we've been trying to cut our fuel bills without having to throw big money around.

The graph you see above represents our gas usage over the last 2 years and, as you can see, we've achieved a sizeable cut so far - over 20% if you ignore that peak caused by last year's harsh winter - and the graph continues to fall.

Although we've got gas heating, what follows applies whatever fuel you use.

The most cost effective way of cutting your fuel bill is to insulate your home as I explain here. Basically, the insulation can pay for itself within 2 to 3 years and will not break the bank. Without it, you're spending a fortune heating the street outside!

If you can't afford it then, if you're a UK citizen, you will be able to make use of the Green Deal next Autumn, which'll make it even easier to insulate your home.

Anyway, what the graph has shown me is that it wasn't until we insulated our loft that we really began to make savings: Even with the cavity wall insulation, double glazing, and draft proofing, there was no 'lid' on our house, so all the heat just went out through the roof. The 2 month period over which the loft work was done, marks the beginning of that steep decline you see in the graph.

The lesson seems to be that, whilst any insulation is better than none, you won't see the full benefit until you've sealed all the leaks.

Insulating Our Loft

Ever wondered how to insulate your loft to the recommended depth and yet still use it for storage? Well, this is how we're tackling that problem at the moment:

We need the loft for storage, so the whole area needs boarding over. But, if we boarded over the current floor joists, it wouldn't allow for the recommended depth of insulation of 270mm (approx 11") - The joists are only 100mm (4") deep which would leave us 170mm short.

We could put down more lengths of wood on top of the joists at right-angles, allowing us to put down 1 layer of insulation between the joists, then another, at right-angles, between the new timbers, and put boards on top. However, building up the floor another 170mm (7") would reduce the amount of useful storage space in our loft too much (Thanks to things like the slope of the roof etc).

So we've decided to raise the floor by about 75mm, giving us room for 175mm of insulation, and put another 100mm of insulation between the roof joists.


Work is currently underway. We hope to be cutting those gas bills very soon....

P.S. The big bonus is that, due to special deals at the DIY stores, we got enough insulation material to do our whole loft for only £90.