Father Peter's helpful suggestion

Father Peter's environmental notes left such a useful comment that I wanted to share it with you. Father Peter has some excellent contributions to make so do visit his blog.

We live in a small cottage that is about 350 years old and luckily was not listed. When we bought it 20 years the property was almost ready to be condemned and I rebuilt it over a two year period as sympathetically as possible.

All the internal walls (with external faces) are false and insulated and the loft spaces are insulated between the rafters by 5’’ of fibreglass at 45 degrees, so equalling 7 ½ inches. The insulated hot water tank was given a jacket on top of the insulation; this is heated by the open wood burning fire in the winter and ½ an hour of off peak electricity in the summer. I am obsessive about draft proofing as this seemingly minor item can make a huge difference. We have just had double glazing fitted and I only wish we could have afforded this years ago. The oil fired central heating has insulated pipes between the boilers and radiators with thermostats on each radiator; these are turned low in rooms that are not in use. The house now has windows that face south, there were none when we bought it, and with the fire on and (when it shines) the winter sun, pouring in the heating rarely comes on.
We discovered a lot in the rebuild, that the kitchen area once held animals, that there were two families living in the house, and, when I removed the wall that covered the bricked up chimney in the living room, an inglenook fireplace with some parts of the old cooker remaining!