Despatches from the front line...

This fabulously exciting picture is the front line in our war on our carbon footprint!

I mentioned in my very first post just how damn draughty our house is. Well, last week we took a big step towards fixing that. We were given some lovely thick carpet by a friend of my mother-in-law and found someone willing to lay it for us (not many people will lay second-hand carpet, so it took us a while to get going).

The difference is unbelievable! Just having the hall, the stairs and the landing carpetted has made such an impact. Plus I'm now slightly less worried about the girls falling down the stairs now - daughter number two and I can both attest that it's no fun falling down wooden stairs.

But a strange thing happened after the carpet was laid. We started leaving the internal doors open. The house was noticeably warmer, but we got lazy. It took about two days for R and I to both notice that our habit of shutting every door in the house behind us to keep the heat in had stopped. Having the carpet made us complacent. Once we noticed, we took action, and we're once again shutting out the draughts from the doors as well as enjoying the carpets. Funny how the mind works though.

Then, last Tuesday, we (hopefully) plugged another hole in our footprint by lagging the loft. When we bought the house, there was some insulation but nowhere near the recommended minimum, so now we're the proud owners of the full monty right across the space. It was amazing how hot it was up there yesterday afternoon when I went up there to take this photo!

I've made a note in the diary for the day it was fitted, and I'm hoping that when I come to review my annual gas bill (and related carbon emissions), I'll see a big dip compared to this time last year.