In the bleak midwinter

So here we are in the bleak mid-winter – the place that everyone with External Wall Insulation loves to be.

As I remain-at-home-to-protect-the-NHS-and-save-lives I have spent a great deal of time staring at the following graph which shows the impact of the triple-glazing and External Wall Insulation.

Click for a larger vsrsion. Plotted in blue against the left-hand axis, the average daily consumption of gas (kWh per day) This is shown against the left-hand axis. Plotted in green against the right -hand axis is the average difference of the outside temperature from 19 °C (°C).

The graph shows two quantities plotted versus the number of days since the start of 2019.

• In blue, I have plotted the average daily consumption of gas (kWh per day)
  • This is shown against the left-hand axis
• In green, I have plotted the average difference of the outside temperature from 19 °C (°C)
  • This is shown against the right-hand axis

The dotted red line shows the weather now (circled in green) is colder than it was at this time two years ago.

However the amount of gas (circled in blue) that I am using to maintain the temperature of the house is now about half what was then: just over 50 kWh per day now versus just over 100 kWh per day then.

The carbon dioxide emissions associated with heating the house look set to be about 1.25 tonnes this winter – still a terrible figure – but much lower than 3 tonnes emitted in the winter of 2018/2019.

To go further we need to ditch the gas boiler and switch to a heat pump. Hopefully we will achieve this in the summer and then we can reasonably hope that next winter we will lower the carbon dioxide emissions associated with heating the house to about 0.4 tonnes – just 13% of what it was in 2018/2019.

 

 

Tags: EWI