All householders in Portobello will be receiving a letter through their door in late August about the Hotspot loft and cavity wall insulation scheme.
In partnership with ESSac, PEDAL is running a “Hotspot” insulation scheme, offering fast track loft and cavity wall insulation from accredited installers.
Here are some guide prices…
3 bedroom house - Cavity Wall Insulation 129* loft insulation £149 — £179*
2 – 3 bedroom tenement flat — Loft Insulation £149 — £269*
*Prices are subject to technical survey.
A third of all the heat lost in an un-insulated home is through the walls, and around a quarter goes through the roof. So cavity wall and loft insulation are effective ways to save both energy and money at home. For example, if your home has cavity walls, insulating them could save on average around £115 a year on your fuel bills.
If you live in a tenement, or if your home can’t take loft or cavity wall insulation, please contact us for advice on other ways you can do to save money and energy. For more information on any of these things please contact our Energy Worker, Charlotte Bickmore, at charlotte@pedal-porty.org.uk or on 0131 258 4483.
Insulation is only effective if it stops air exchange in and out of the house as well (infiltration/exfiltration) or is paired with air-sealing strategies. Most of the heat lost from older homes in the winter goes out through small gaps and cracks in the building enclosure, and cold outside air gets sucked in at the foundation — this is the ‘stack’ effect — or how a chimney operates, and it requires the heating system to re-heat the air. An air-tight home must also have good mechanical ventilation, of course, to swap an appropriate amount of air (ASHRAE 62.2 residential ventilation standard –US) to exhaust contaminants and odors and bring in fresh air, but much more energy can be saved than is spent on running the ventilation system. I love insulation, but it can be a waste if air sealing is not also done.
Hi Mark, thanks for your comment. We would certainly advise people to draughtproof their homes as thoroughly as possible if they can, especially in an older property. The Hotspot offer that we are promoting is mainly for loft and cavity wall insulation, and is affordable to most people and in some cases free. Unfortunately there are only limited offers at the moment for draughtproofing (if you are in receipt of certain benefits or over 70 you may qualify), and none for ventilation systems. With this offer we are hoping to promote the most affordable ways for people to keep their homes warmer and reduce their carbon emissions, however, we would like to look further into hard-to-treat properties and what can be done to insulate them.