7 Reasons

Tag: insulation

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Insulate Your Home

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Insulate Your Home

    Today we are joined on the 7 Reasons sofa by John Morris – a freelance writer and journalist. He is a DIY enthusiastic and often writes on wide range of home & garden related topics.

    7 Reasons To Insulate Your Home
    Ice House by bill791

    Insulating your home has so many ‘no-brainer’ advantages; there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t. From cutting your energy bills to saving the planet, here are seven solid reasons you should get to work insulating your home.

    1.  Keep Cosy. Let’s kick off with the most obvious: insulating your home keeps you warm. It might sound straightforward, but if you live in a temperate or cold climate, there’s nothing sure to make you feel more miserable in winter than when you feel as cold inside, as it looks outside. It’s not all about spending money either. A bit of basic draught proofing can cost nothing, yet make a huge difference, making your house feel much cosier. And there are literally hundreds of easy, low effort ways to insulate and draught proof your home, from placing homemade draught eliminators in front of doors to a bit of DIY loft insulation using bubble-wrap, cardboard boxes and a staplegun. Many of the easiest ways to get the heat in and the cold out cost nothing!

    2.  Money! Money! Money! There are few greater motivators than hard cash. With the way energy prices are going at the moment, by insulating your home, you will end up paying a lot less to your energy supplier. Current estimates suggest, depending on how ‘extreme’ your insulating strategy is, you can easily save 20% on your annual energy bills and perhaps as much as a third if you’re willing to spend a little extra at the outset. Gas, electricity and oil prices are only going one way – up – so it’s worth bearing in mind that every time your provider increases their prices, you end up saving even more. It’s also worth considering stashing the money you save into a high interest savings account to fund further energy saving technology, such as solar panels, that can massively reduce your bills in the future.

    3.  Do Your Bit For The Environment. Up to a half of all the energy used in the average home are for heat and hot water. Which is why cutting down on the amount of energy you use is good for your carbon footprint. Even if you use a ‘green’ energy provider, you’re still responsible for releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Climate change affects everyone on the planet, and if you have children, you’ll certainly be interested in protecting planet Earth for future generations. Take the first step on your road to a greener future by insulating your home.

    4.  Stay Cool. What many people don’t realise is that by insulating your home to keep warmth in during the winter, you also stay cool in summer. That’s because, if you use air conditioning during the summer months, insulating your home keeps heat out. So if you’re lucky enough to live in a region that’s prone to hot weather during the summer months, you can reduce the amount of energy you use then too. It’s a win-win situation – insulating your home can save you money all year round.

    5.  Looking After Your Investment. Your home is probably the most expensive thing you’ll ever buy. It’s also your biggest investment for the future. By making sure it’s properly insulated, you can dramatically increase the value of your property. As every estate agent knows, professionally insulated properties sell much faster and for more cash than those that aren’t. After all, what would you prefer to buy – a house that’s cold and expensive to heat or a similar property that’s cosy and cheap to run? Exactly!

    6.  Noise Elimination. Everyone knows that insulating your home keeps the cold out, but it also keeps another unwanted element out – noise! Wall and loft insulation, as well as double-glazing, is just as effective at keeping noise out all year round as it is at keeping the heat in your home during the winter. What’s more, if you’re an aspiring drummer, it keeps the noise in, so it could keep your neighbours happy too.

    7.  Feel Better. If you suffer from allergies, using natural methods to regulate the temperature in your home, such as insulating to keep heat in and opening windows to let it out can prevent the growth of certain allergens, such as microbes and spores. So by insulating your home properly, you’ll be better off in terms of health and wellbeing too.

  • 7 Reasons to Love Bubble Wrap

    7 Reasons to Love Bubble Wrap

     

    1.  Association.  Almost everything that you buy from ebay comes with free bubble wrap, and the sight of bubble wrap is mentally associated with the arrival of a new bike part or a jewellery tree or a silver letter opener or a miniature sewing machine or an owl statuette or a giant pen or a Back To The Future novelty clock (yes, our loft is heaving).  The sight of bubble wrap means the arrival of stuff.  And stuff is good.  Especially red stuff.

     

    2.  Christmas.  I once gave a large, fragile, Christmas present that was covered with a substantial quantity of bubble wrap.  Within ten minutes, the gift had been discarded, and the recipient was clothed from head to toe in the bubble wrap, spinning, and shrieking with delight.  She was 32.  I believe she still has the bubble wrap.

     

    3.  It’s Better Than The Alternative (1).  Bubble wrap is a far better packing material than polystyrene chips, which are perhaps the most pervasive thing known to man.  I don’t know how, but when you remove an item from a box containing polystyrene chips, the quantity of chips in the box remains exactly the same.  That’s in the unlikely event that the chips stay in the box, as they usually spill all over the floor and, even though you think you’ve got them all, they subsequently turn up on the floors of every room in the house.  Oh, and in the cat.  He loves them.

     

    4.  It’s Better Than The Alternative (2).  When an ebay purchase arrives insulated in bubble wrap it says very little about the sender (other than they chose the correct insulation).  When an ebay purchase arrives wrapped in newspaper, it says something quite different.  Now I must admit, I’ve had an enjoyable time reading scraps of newspaper from around the world that came with ebay purchases, but I’ve also purchased items that have come wrapped in the Daily Mail.  To this day, I still can’t look at our cow-patterned butter dish without thinking, “Fascists sent us that”.  Fortunately I don’t go into the loft very often.

     

    5.  It’s inspirational.  Joey Green and Tim Nyberg got inspired in a bar and wrote the first draft of The Bubble Wrap Book on 827 cocktail napkins.  That’s the way to write.  That sounds like a crazed, rambling, semi-coherent lost weekend of writing.  I’m writing this alone in a room with no napkins, no bubble wrap and no cocktails.  I’m wearing lounging pants.  I’m doing it wrong.  If only I had some bubble wrap.  Or a cocktail.

     

    6.  Inevitably.  Okay, you knew this was coming.  You can pop it, which is probably the most satisfying, compelling and pointless activity that a lone person can be involved in (multiple people can have pillow fights).  It’s not possible to be near bubble wrap without the thought, “pop it…pop it…pop it…POP IT!!!!!!!” echoing insistently through your mind.  The compulsion to pop it is irresistible.

     

    7.  It’s ubiquitous.  Bubble wrap gets everywhere.  And thanks to the very clever OpalCat, it’s here and we can prove reason six.  Enjoy!  Manic mode is amazing, by the way.

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