When thinking about extending your home, one error people make is thinking it will utilise more energy consumption. Surely if a property is bigger in design – the utility costs will be bigger, right?
What if a Manchester architect told you that extending your home and making it bigger drastically reduces your household bills? Surely that cannot be! Not only is it true, but we will tell you how and why.
This Old House
If your home is a few decades old, it will have been built when insulation was not a priority – meaning that the building tends to emit much more heat than today’s modern buildings. Whilst we live in a decade where everyone puts saving on utility bills as a major priority, it does not mean that you should look for a more modern home to move into.
There are ways you can transform your home to reduce those heating bills, with one of the most cost-effective ways is fully extending your home. To those who jump to thinking that more space must mean more in heating and power – hold your horses – because when you extend your home wisely, you create more space, adding value to your home and reducing your heat emission.
How It Works
External cavity walls built throughout the 1980s emitted over three times the heat modern walls do. If you go back to the 1960s, this figure is over six times more.
With a 1980s model, an extension of 6m square, with a perimeter of 18m has the equivalent heat loss of the six metre-long wall of the existing house now enclosed with the new extension. Now, you will have more roof and floor area emitting heat, but today we insulate floors – whereas, in the 80s, homes had no floor insulation and a tiny amount of insulation in the roof.
That means heat loss with the new floor and roof area will be comparatively small. The big difference will come with modern windows and glazing in your extension.
Glazing and Windows
Modern windows today come with triple glazing and lose about a quarter of the heat that your typical 1980s home – with single-glazed windows – would.
By having triple-glazed windows installed as part of your extension – and providing an allowance for the heat loss in the old windows of your existing wall – you more than save the heat lost in the extra roof and floor.
Lighting
Today, many extensions have a skylight fixture to allow for more natural sunlight into the space. That helps to cut down on lighting bills as much as large bay windows by having more access to daylight and reliance on lighting only in the evenings.
An extension to your property is a big saver over the long term and eliminates many of the main drivers of energy waste. For more information on extending your home, consult with the team at Cheadle Architects today for architectural services Manchester.
