Helping you make your home fit for the future.
We offer, independent and impartial advice to homeowners in the South West of England* to take the confusion out of planning energy saving home improvements.
*Futureproof covers the following council areas: Bristol, Bath and NE Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Somerset County, Swindon and Wiltshire.
We guide you through the process...
Helping you decide what solutions are best suited to your home, lifestyle and budget, and what you can do to maximise energy savings, as well as helping you access available grants and financial support.
Taking the guesswork out of finding a builder you trust by connecting you with our network of trained builders and installers with the skills to deliver high-quality work.
Ensuring work is completed to a high standard, with materials and techniques appropriate to your home.
Whatever you want to achieve...
Energy saving measures
If you need a single measure like insulation, a new heating system or solar PV, we can help you make the best choice for your home and budget, and refer you to local installers.
We can also help you consider the impact of combining measures to maximise energy savings, for example, solar panels, battery storage and electric car charging.
Extensions and Conversions
If you’re already planning an extension or conversion we can help you maximise energy savings and reduce the environmental impact of your home.
For example, Incorporating insulation and ventilation into an extension will have long lasting benefits for your pocket and the planet.
Whole house refurbishments
If you can implement everything at the same time in a full house refurbishment, this can be the most cost effective approach in the long term.
Or we can help you develop a retrofit roadmap, enabling you to tackle the whole house over a number of years, including all the energy saving technologies along the way, to achieve your desired outcome.
Explore energy efficiency options with our interactive house
Hover over different parts of the house to explore how to incorporate energy saving measures and crucial considerations for making your project sustainable.
The Futureproof house
Explore the house to find out more
Existing Ground Floors
Existing ground floors are usually of two types – suspended timber or solid concrete.
Suspended timber floors are vectors for draughts and uninsulated concrete floors provide a thermal bridge – bringing cold into the home. There are a number of ways to reduce these draughts…
Read moreNew Ground Floors
It is important to make sure that any new floors (solid or suspended timber) in a house are well insulated to avoid cold air coming into the house and creating draughts…
Read moreSolid Wall Insulation - External & Internal
Most of our older buildings have solid walls – brick or stone, often with a rubble infill. While often attractive, this performs badly compared to modern construction in terms of retaining heat.
The addition of wall insulation can make a huge difference to the energy efficiency of a building while also making the internal environment much more comfortable…
Read moreWindows
Some older buildings will have the original single glazed windows still in place or poorly performing double-glazing that is coming to the end of its useful life.
Replacing them with high performance double or triple glazed windows will make a significant difference both to comfort and heating bills…
Read moreRenewable & Low Carbon Energy Technologies
Renewable energy technologies provide heat or power generated via solar, wind and water.
Low Carbon energy technologies include heat pumps (air, ground or water source) and biomass. Installing a renewable or low carbon energy technology will reduce fossil fuel use, reduce carbon emissions and should help reduce energy costs over time…
Read moreLoft Conversion & Roof Lights
Converting the loft can be a good way to add space to a property, avoiding the need to move and providing value to that property.
There are a number of considerations when planning a loft extension…
Read moreExisting & New roofs
On average uninsulated roofs can lose 25% of heat from a property.
Improving loft insulation is generally an easy and cost effective way of reducing heat loss and saving money…
Read moreGood Practice Detailing at Junctions & Thermal Bridging
Reducing heat loss through retrofitting is all about ensuring works consider interfaces and junctions (ceilings and walls, walls and floors, floors and floors).
Where insulation is added the aim is to ensure a consistent coverage to reduce thermal bridges…
Read moreVentilation
Ensuring adequate ventilation becomes increasingly important as we make improvements to our homes to make them warmer and airtight.
Improving windows and adding insulation reduces background or ‘uncontrolled’ ventilation, so the need to ensure adequate fresh air, removing stale air and excess moisture from the building becomes more important…
Read moreLighting
Replacing incandescent and halogen lights for LEDs or compact fluorescents (CFLs) can help save money and reduce energy use…
Read moreHealthy Interiors & Indoor Air Quality
Most of our lives are spent inside, much of it in our own homes, yet few of us question how healthy our homes are for our health.
Many products that we bring into our homes use chemicals that off-gas volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) over time, we don’t always ensure fresh air, or regulate the humidity of the air in our homes.…
Read moreSustainable Water Use
Reducing energy use also includes the consideration of the amount of water used on a daily basis.
The water that comes from our taps is cleaned so that it is drinkable, this uses a large amount of energy to ensure that it is safe. Being aware of our water usage can also reduce our own energy bills and its associated carbon emissions…
Read moreHeating & Hot Water
Space heating averages 63% of household energy bills and hot water accounts for another 23%, the rest is from running appliances, lighting and other electrical needs.
How your hot water and heating needs are met are therefore extremely important in reducing energy costs…
Read moreCavity Wall Insulation
On houses built between 1920 – 1990 it is likely or probable that cavity wall construction was used, although some may have a combination of solid and cavity walls, on different facades and also at different floor levels!
Generally brick built homes after WW2 were built with cavity walls. Until 1990 these were not generally filled with insulation as a requirement of building regulations…
Read moreExisting ground floors are usually of two types – suspended timber or solid concrete.
Suspended timber floors are vectors for draughts and uninsulated concrete floors provide a thermal bridge – bringing cold into the home. There are a number of ways to reduce these draughts…
Read moreIt is important to make sure that any new floors (solid or suspended timber) in a house are well insulated to avoid cold air coming into the house and creating draughts…
Read moreMost of our older buildings have solid walls – brick or stone, often with a rubble infill. While often attractive, this performs badly compared to modern construction in terms of retaining heat.
The addition of wall insulation can make a huge difference to the energy efficiency of a building while also making the internal environment much more comfortable…
Read moreSome older buildings will have the original single glazed windows still in place or poorly performing double-glazing that is coming to the end of its useful life.
Replacing them with high performance double or triple glazed windows will make a significant difference both to comfort and heating bills…
Read moreRenewable energy technologies provide heat or power generated via solar, wind and water.
Low Carbon energy technologies include heat pumps (air, ground or water source) and biomass. Installing a renewable or low carbon energy technology will reduce fossil fuel use, reduce carbon emissions and should help reduce energy costs over time…
Read moreConverting the loft can be a good way to add space to a property, avoiding the need to move and providing value to that property.
There are a number of considerations when planning a loft extension…
Read moreOn average uninsulated roofs can lose 25% of heat from a property.
Improving loft insulation is generally an easy and cost effective way of reducing heat loss and saving money…
Read moreReducing heat loss through retrofitting is all about ensuring works consider interfaces and junctions (ceilings and walls, walls and floors, floors and floors).
Where insulation is added the aim is to ensure a consistent coverage to reduce thermal bridges…
Read moreEnsuring adequate ventilation becomes increasingly important as we make improvements to our homes to make them warmer and airtight.
Improving windows and adding insulation reduces background or ‘uncontrolled’ ventilation, so the need to ensure adequate fresh air, removing stale air and excess moisture from the building becomes more important…
Read moreReplacing incandescent and halogen lights for LEDs or compact fluorescents (CFLs) can help save money and reduce energy use…
Read moreMost of our lives are spent inside, much of it in our own homes, yet few of us question how healthy our homes are for our health.
Many products that we bring into our homes use chemicals that off-gas volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) over time, we don’t always ensure fresh air, or regulate the humidity of the air in our homes.…
Read moreReducing energy use also includes the consideration of the amount of water used on a daily basis.
The water that comes from our taps is cleaned so that it is drinkable, this uses a large amount of energy to ensure that it is safe. Being aware of our water usage can also reduce our own energy bills and its associated carbon emissions…
Read moreSpace heating averages 63% of household energy bills and hot water accounts for another 23%, the rest is from running appliances, lighting and other electrical needs.
How your hot water and heating needs are met are therefore extremely important in reducing energy costs…
Read moreOn houses built between 1920 – 1990 it is likely or probable that cavity wall construction was used, although some may have a combination of solid and cavity walls, on different facades and also at different floor levels!
Generally brick built homes after WW2 were built with cavity walls. Until 1990 these were not generally filled with insulation as a requirement of building regulations…
Read moreSee Glossary Items
Home Improvement Case Studies
See what people have done in a home like yours, including their motivations, recommendations and lessons learned along the way.
If you live in the West of England, get in touch!
Get in touch“I had wanted to get this project rolling for years but hadn’t known where to start.
The help and referrals from Futureproof finally got things moving.
I’m delighted!”
Householder, Bristol
Get in touch for impartial advice & support to improve your home