INSULATING your home doesn't just stop heat escaping in winter, it also keeps your home cool when the sun is beating down.
August might not seem the obvious month to dive into the world of home insulation, but if you were sitting where I am (in a room built into an un-insulated roof space) you'd understand. The upper floor of my house feels like a sauna and it's beginnin
g to affect my ability to think straight. Remember the look in Martin Sheen's eyes as he set off to kill Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now? I'm wearing that same expression right now.
I naïvely thought insulation was what you did to keep cold out, not heat. That was my first mistake. The second was assuming it would be easy to get information on how to insulate your loft and walls in an eco-friendly way.
Let's clarify. If you have a normal-shaped loft it's simple – roll out the insulating material and you could save £155 a year on heating bills. But what to do when your upstairs rooms are part-built into the loft? (I know I'm not the only person in Scotland in this situation.)
The flat strip in the middle is easy enough, but the steep slopes on either side can only be accessed via a six-inch gap. According to the Energy Saving Trust, this means I don't qualify for the discount schemes offered by energy providers. Perhaps I could persuade some leafcutter ants to carry bits of insulation down there for me.
While we're at it, let's talk about solid walls. If your house has cavity walls, get them filled – there are grants available, it takes hardly any time at all and reduces heating costs by about 15%. But if you occupy one of the estimated 500,000 solid-walled homes in Scotland, consider moving house. There are no discount schemes to insulate these walls (because it would cost too much).
Left to take the DIY approach, you'll have to navigate the bewildering world of eco-friendly building materials. Clay boards, straw boards, hempcrete, sheep's wool insulation, vapour-permeable barriers and lime render all sound wonderful, but trying to find a local builder who's familiar with them is another matter. I managed to speak to some nice people from the Scottish Ecological Design Association (www.seda2.org) while at the Big Tent Festival, and got some answers (I seemingly need to think about a ventilation gap and could go for the sheep's wool and clay board combo).
I've found a few eco consultants based in the south of England (reading about how one company, GreenSteps, transformed KT Tunstall's London flat had me green with envy), but here in Scotland finding someone who's impartial, fully qualified and can come to my house and draw up the perfect renovation scheme is proving difficult. Hours spent trawling www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk throws up plenty of opinions, most of which contradict each other: "Leave an air gap behind the insulation to allow for ventilation"; "Don't leave a gap, you need the room to be airtight", for example.
Perhaps I'm missing something. But the government's aim to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 isn't going to be achieved unless it makes it easier for those of us in hard-to-treat houses to access clear information about green renovations. And I mean real information – technical specs, latest materials on the market, comparisons between products. (My local energy advice centre tried its best, but wasn't allowed under its own guidelines to recommend specific products.)
And some grants wouldn't hurt, either. This will doubtless take years to achieve, so I'm going to blitz ahead with a creative insulation system cobbled together from advice found on a dozen different websites. How badly wrong can it go?
5 Minutes tosave the worldSWITCH to virtual bank statements. Your bank has probably already been badgering you to do this, and as each household in the UK throws away more than 200kg of paper each year, taking bank statements out of the equation is an easy way to reduce waste. And just think of how much less time you'll spend using the shredder and worrying about identity theft.
Healthy planetTIRED of plastic bags that burst at the fruit and veg counter? Arm yourself with these fine mesh Onya weigh bags, which are strong enough to carry your veg home in and can then be used as a colander. There are five bags, which come in a pouch with a clip that you can attach to your keyring or shopping trolley. And you can get a doggy Dump It bag too, for cleaning up after your best friend. (£8.95, www.onyabags.co.uk)
