An easy and fairly fun job to get started

One of the first, and easiest, insulation projects that we did was to put foil-bubblewrap insulation behind our radiators. This is a simple job, and I was able to do the whole house over a couple of afternoons one weekend, even with the help of a 6 year old. The whole job was pretty cheap, and I’ve heard anecdotally that it’s one of the best value things you can do in terms of getting your money back in savings.

I’ll share what we did and what we learnt along the way. The photos are from a mix of rooms. The process has been documented before by other people, The technique I used is pretty much based on this blog post on Insulating My House

For the sake of convenience, I bought the following ThermaWrap Insulation from Toolstation. It’s almost certainly possible to get the same or similar product cheaper if you shop around, but there’s a lot to be said for being able to get something in 15 minutes from when you order it.

The first step is to measure the radiator carefully (or get an assistant to do it).

And then sketch everything out on a bit of paper. You want the foil to be hidden from sight (unless you’re peering straight down from above) and to go in easily without getting stuck on whatever fixings are behind the radiator. In our radiators there are two vertical metal fixings. I made my foil 5cm in from the sides and top of the radiator. I left a slot about 1cm wide for the fixings, which goes all the way to the bottom, so the foil can slide down over them. The bottom I left a bit long for now.

Then mark out where to cut on the foil, we found a small permanent marker like a sharpie worked well on the foil, and you can cut it with ordinary scissors.

Test fit the foil behind the radiator, and then mark the bottom of the foil with the marker, approximately flush with the bottom of the radiator (no need for a 5cm recess here, as it doesn’t show), you can then pull it out and trim the bottom to the marked line.

Before gluing the foil behind the radiator, (thanks to Andy of Sure Insulation for this tip) it’s a good idea to get a bin-bag, cut down one side so you can unfold it into a big sheet, and fix it to the wall at the top of the radiator with masking tape. You can then lift it up over the windowsill and fix it to the window itself. This stops glue getting onto the walls when you slide the glued-up foil down behind the radiator.

Then paint all over the back of the foil with glue with an old paintbrush. Ordinary PVA (white glue) is fine. You need to get it on pretty quickly or it starts to dry.

And slip it down behind the radiator. We pressed it against the wall with a bendy bit of metal we found in the shed, but one of those little paint rollers designed for painting behind radiators would probably work. And that’s it! All finished.