Door Insulation

Doors have moved on in the past few years the advent of the composite door has vastly improved the insulation benefits over a conventional wooden door.  Doors now have to have U-value ratings, which are a measurement of how energy efficient the door is at insulating. Modern composite doors have U-ratings as low as 1 W/m2K which is why they should be considered when looking at the overall insulation needs of any property.

The cost of replacing external doors is relatively low when compared to double glazing or internal wall insulation and so the Return On Investment (ROI) is achieved much quicker. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) a composite door is the third most cost effective measure you can install with regards to ROI.  Boiler replacement and cavity wall insulation were the top two measures in terms of ROI.  So if you have already replaced your boiler and done the cavity wall insulation them logically you should look at replacing external doors.

The other big issue that is sometimes overlooked in all of the insulation measures is the ‘hassle factor’ the Government found that when persuading people to insulate their lofts there was reluctance from people who didn’t want to empty there lofts and have builders tramping in and out of their homes.  In contrast replacing a door can take a couple of hours and the disruption is minimal so it will be interesting to see the up-take of doors verses windows when the Green Deal is launched. Doors are sometimes over looked when considering the best way to insulate a home but they offer both good insulation and draft proofing as well as excellent ROI.