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Most of us are all familiar with the use of insulation materials in walls and roof spaces.

Double-glazing, too, provides better insulation than single glazing, and products such as Pilkington K-glass will perform better still.

At its simplest, the more insulation your home has, the lower will be your heating bills, and the colder the climate the more important a high standard of insulation becomes. That is why houses in countries with colder winters such as Sweden and Austria have traditionally been better insulated than those in the UK.
Over the years the building regulations have progressively required higher insulation standards, responding to increasing environmental awareness and the government’s commitment to the Kyoto protocol. These standards are likely to continue to be raised.

Although some aspects of a building’s insulation can be improved later, it is simplest and most effective to achieve a high standard during building or major renovation work. In practice you can insulate to well above the building regulation requirement, but a building will always need some level of heating, first because there needs to be some passage of air from the outside to maintain freshness and second because insulation does not itself create warmth: it simply helps to retain it.

With underfloor heating a high proportion of the warmth is radiant, with little generation of convection currents, so not only does it feel more comfortable, but the loss of heat from the building is reduced too.

It is also true that because the warmth passes into the room from the floor, it is important to prevent downward heat losses into the ground or into the floor below. Generally the requirements of the building regulations are sufficient to achieve this, but again a higher level of insulation will not only reduce bills but will provide faster heating response.

In a new build that meets the regulations, there will always be an adequate level of floor insulation, but if a building is being refurbished and no extra insulation is provided to reduce downward losses, heating bills could be high.

That is why, when a Nu-Heat system is designed, the insulation is evaluated and the downward losses are carefully calculated to ensure that the potential for reduced running cost is fully achieved in practice.

What is certain is that energy costs will continue to rise. The better the insulation in your new home, the better your investment in it will become.