Installed Measures:
Please note: all rights reserved to Andrew Crowley for the family photos at the Royston SuperHome.
Personal Story:
Our last house was a rented, damp, expensive to heat and impossible to get warm so when we started house hunting being warm and comfortable was close to the top of the list.
Unfortunately, so was a good sized garden and a central location and with a limited budget we couldn’t tick all these boxes.
After a year of searching, an old victorian house with a decent garden within easy walking distance of the town and station came up under our budget. We realized that if we kept back a bit of the cash we’d planned to spend on the house for refurbishment we could end up with everything we wanted.
Motivations:
Cost savings are obviously important, as is the environment, but a part of the puzzle that is hard to quantify is just how important being comfortable is.
Benefits:
Our home certainly feels warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. It means that our energy bills have more than halved and when we do put the heating on the house stays warm.
The most dramatic change was in the old solid-walled bathroom (which previously had chronic condensation and resulting mould on the walls) – The combination of external insulation and improved ventilation has now made this the warmest room in the house with no sign of mould.
Favourite Feature:
We should say insulation as this is the biggest energy saver, but the heat recovery ventilation system, which means the air in the house always feels ‘fresh’, without the drafts makes the house a hugely more comfortable place to live.
