I wish improving the energy efficiency of your house came with unlockable achievements, I’d be a total achievement-whore. Roughly a year ago, we bought a very old house (roughly 1750), and it was in a sorry state in terms of energy efficiency. To take just a single room (the living room/lounge/whatever), it had thin carpet and crap underlay, huge gaps under the skirting board, a freezing cold cellar underneath with zero insulation between joists, and an open chimney with an open fire. Plus single glazed windows (can’t change them…alas), and normal bog standard curtains.
Now…
- It has a wood-burning stove, MASSIVELY more energy efficient than an open fire (+400 points)
- Curtains lined with ‘blackout-liner’, to keep the heat in (+50 points)
- Some heat-reflecting nano-paint, ready to repaint the walls (yes really) (+25 points)
- Sheeps-wool insulation stuffed between the joists under the floor (+75 points)
- Super-thick underlay and carpet on order (+40 points)
- A builder is going to fill all the gaps under the skirting board (+125 points).
To add complications, we just discovered that a draught from under the skirting boards is coming from a HUGE gap in one corner. It looks like the floorboard there is missing, and has been replaced with a thin sheet of metal, that is just hanging in one corner. What the hell? I think that may need properly fixing, by actual tradespeople.
Hopefully by the time this is all done, it will massively drop my heating bill, and I won’t need to sell 10,000 copies a day just to keep us warm. Hurrah! The guy who sold us the house must have worn duvets strapped to each limb all winter.