renovation & building
Quick guide: HEATING YOUR HOME
There are plenty of options when it comes to keeping your house warm. Rebecca Foster discusses the key decisions you’ll need to make, from start to finish
1 Take a fabric first approach
Before nailing down the details for your home’s heating strategy, make it your priority to establish an airtight thermal envelope. Installing efficient glazing and incorporating plenty of insulation in the walls, floors and roof will prevent precious heat from leaking out via the building fabric. This method will help save you money on energy bills in the long run, too.
Though modern double- and triple-glazed windows offer fantastic thermal performance, they’re never going to be as efficient as a solid stretch of wall that’s filled with insulation. However, savvy self builders can use glazing to make the most of the sun’s free heat by maximising solar gain. At the design stage of your project, your architect can model the sun’s path across your property throughout the day, accounting for how the angle of the sun changes through the seasons of the year. Incorporating large spans of glazing on the southern elevation of the house that gets lots of sunshine, for instance, will allow more of this natural warmth into the building. Keeping glass to a minimum on the northern side of the house will minimise heat loss via windows, particularly during chilly winter months.