Introduction
Heating your home efficiently is an excellent way to save on the running costs of your home. Without insulation, heating your home is an ongoing battle because the heat you are generating is constantly escaping. This increases your energy bills. There are many ways to improve your home’s energy efficiency… but first we need to understand how a home works.
The Building Envelope
 Our homes provide shelter from the sun, rain, wind and snow, and they keep us warm and comfortable. The floor, walls, roof, windows and doors all help to do this. This envelope separates our warm and comfortable indoors from the weather outside. To maintain our comfortable indoors, this envelope must control the flow of heat.
To make our indoors comfortable, we add a heating system to overcome the cold Waikato winters. Ideally we should also try to build our homes so that we can retain as much heat inside our envelope as possible, like using effective insulation. We need to keep the heat in.
Heat moves in any direction – up, down or sideways – but always from a warm spot to a colder one. A heated room over an unheated garage will lose heat through the floor. Heat moves to the cold. It's the job of the envelope to keep the heat in and the cold out
- Do you have gaps in your envelope?
- Is there a gap under your door?
- Do you have insulation?
- Is the bathroom window open?
Depending on your answers… you could be throwing money away… it could be flying out of the window…
Home Heating - Some Energy Saving Hints
- Air leaks are common at the joint between the chimney and the wall. Seal them.
- Air leaks under doors. Fix it.
- Air leaks through walls, roof and floors. Insulate.
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