DIY Home Insulation

Do you have a modern or a modernised house with central heating and good windows, yet you still feel cold? Are your energy bills rising year on year? Do you have a tool bag and some spare weekends? If the answer is, ‘Yes’, then this is the book for you! Written for the DIY enthusiast, this jargon-free manual gives practical instructions on how to bring any home up to 21st-century insulation standards.

This book explains how to insulate the areas that housebuilders of a previous era neglected. It tells us the latest thinking about moisture and ventilation and shows us how to avoid common DIY lining pitfalls, of which weak mountings and moisture traps are two common mistakes.

This book is in two parts. Part I shows in detail how to insulate and line the insides of our walls. This is probably the most effective insulation task we can do in a house. Yet, wall insulation is often overlooked in favour of a better heating system or window replacement: “How can it be,” we ask, “that I have a modern, well-insulated home, yet it is still cold?” The answer is in the walls.

Part II of this book adds methods for adding insulation below floors, onto ceilings and ways of improving the performance of existing windows. It also discusses the sealing of draughts and the opposite issue, ensuring adequate ventilation.

Like the other books in the DIY HOME INSULATION series, Walls, Windows Floors and Ventilation uses the author’s own house in England as a case study, with accompanying photographs from his insulation work.