A Greener Way of Improving Your Home

 


A Greener Way of Improving Your Home

(Saving money, cutting carbon, and adding real comfort)

If you’re going to improve your home, why not make it greener at the same time?

Many renovations look good on Instagram — but the real win is when improvements reduce energy bills, increase comfort, and shrink your carbon footprint. As someone living in a solar-powered home with battery storage and a heat pump, I can honestly say the changes that make the biggest difference aren’t always the flashy ones.

Here’s a smarter, greener approach to home improvement.

1️⃣ Insulate First – Because Heating the Garden Is Not a Hobby

Before buying shiny tech, deal with heat loss.

  • Loft insulation (cheap, huge impact)

  • Cavity wall insulation

  • Draught proofing doors and windows

  • Thick curtains and thermal blinds

In the UK climate, insulation often gives a faster return on investment than solar panels. It also makes your house feel warmer — not just theoretically efficient.

💡 Rule of thumb: Reduce demand before increasing supply.

2️⃣ Upgrade Heating the Smart Way

If your boiler is ageing, consider your options carefully:

  • Repair?

  • Replace with another gas boiler?

  • Move to an air-source heat pump?

In well-insulated homes, heat pumps perform extremely well — even during cold spells. Pairing them with weather compensation controls or smart thermostats improves efficiency further.

Greener doesn’t mean freezing. It means designed properly.

3️⃣ Generate & Store Your Own Power

Solar panels have dropped dramatically in price over the past decade.

Add battery storage and you can:

  • Store cheap off-peak electricity

  • Use solar power at night

  • Protect yourself from energy price spikes

In our case, solar + battery means our boat batteries and much of our household energy are powered by sunshine. It feels rather satisfying charging things knowing the grid isn’t doing the heavy lifting.

4️⃣ Water Matters Too

After recent UK droughts followed by heavy rainfall, water resilience is becoming as important as energy.

Consider:

  • Water butts for garden use

  • Low-flow shower heads

  • Fixing leaks quickly

  • Greywater systems in larger renovations

It saves money and reduces pressure on reservoirs.

5️⃣ Improve, Don’t Just Replace

The greenest product is often the one you already own.

  • Repair furniture

  • Upgrade glazing rather than replacing full frames

  • Refinish kitchen cabinets instead of ripping them out

  • Maintain roofs and gutters

Demolition creates waste. Improvement creates value.

🏡 A Practical Green Plan

If you’re planning upgrades this year, consider this order:

  1. Insulate & draught proof

  2. Smart heating controls

  3. Low-carbon heating

  4. Solar + battery

  5. Water efficiency

  6. Lifestyle tweaks

Small changes stack up.

And unlike trendy décor, lower bills never go out of fashion.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Filtration Technology Could Be a Game-Changer in Removing PFAS “Forever Chemicals”

Image
New Filtration Technology Could Be a Game-Changer in Removing PFAS “Forever Chemicals”  PFAS – often called “forever chemicals” – have a nasty habit of doing exactly what their nickname suggests: they don’t break down , they build up in the environment, and they accumulate in our bodies. Used for decades in non-stick cookware, waterproof clothing, firefighting foams, food packaging and industrial processes, PFAS are now found in rivers, groundwater, drinking water – and even rain . The scale of the problem has felt overwhelming. Until now. A breakthrough from the lab Researchers at Rice University have developed a new filtration material that could dramatically change how we deal with PFAS pollution. Their peer-reviewed research describes a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material made from copper and aluminium that can: Absorb long-chain PFAS up to 100× faster than current filtration systems Target the most persistent and dangerous PFAS compounds Potentially destr...
Read more

Using Ecosia: The Search Engine That Plants Trees

Image
  Using Ecosia: The Search Engine That Plants Trees ( Click. Search. Plant. Repeat. ) Imagine if every time you googled something, you planted a tree. No, it’s not some kind of green-tech fantasy — it’s Ecosia , a real search engine that uses its ad revenue to fund global reforestation projects. And all it takes is changing your browser’s homepage. What Is Ecosia? Ecosia is a free, privacy-respecting search engine based in Germany. It works just like Google or Bing, but with a twist: They use 100% of their profits to plant trees. So far, they've funded over 180 million trees in places like: Brazil Burkina Faso Madagascar Indonesia Kenya All you have to do is search the web. That’s it. You search — they plant. How It Works Every time you search on Ecosia, the platform earns revenue from clicks on sponsored search results (just like Google). Roughly 45 searches = 1 tree . The money goes to vetted reforestation projects with a focus on: Native bi...
Read more

Insulation: Can You Ever Have Enough?

Image
  Insulation: Can You Ever Have Enough ? Short answer: almost certainly not . Longer answer: many UK homes have some insulation, but far fewer have the right amount, in the right places, installed to modern standards . This blog looks at the crucial difference between what you have and what you should have – and why that gap matters for your comfort, bills, and carbon footprint. What Most Homes Have If your house was built before the 2000s, typical insulation looks like this: 🏠 Loft 100–150 mm of mineral wool Often patchy, compressed, or missing at the edges 🧱 Walls Cavity walls : may have older blown insulation (or none at all) Solid walls (common pre-1920): usually uninsulated 🪵 Floors Timber floors with no insulation underneath Draughts coming up through gaps you only notice in winter 🚪 Windows & doors Double glazing, but with: Poor seals Thermal bridges around frames This setup was once considered “reasonable”. By tod...
Read more