Keeping Warm In Your Park Home This Winter

The prospect of winter fills many with dread, as longer nights and lower temperatures mean that it’s harder to keep warm in your park home. This guide gives you some helpful tips, whether you’re thinking of buying a park home or already live in one.

Choosing your park home

If you are considering living in a park home for the first time, it is worth looking at models built after 2015 when new building regulations (BS 3632) that ensure higher standards of energy efficiency came into force. Older, second-hand park homes will be cheaper initially but with higher running costs and the difficulty of heating them in the winter, it may be more economical in the long term to choose a more expensive, newer model now. This, of course, depends on your circumstances.

Keeping warm in your park home in winter has become easier for residents with newer models. The current regulations governing building standards for park homes, ensure a high level of insulation and make the job that much easier. Homes built to BS3632 have higher minimum maintainable room temperatures and window and door glazing achieves better U-values. All these factors come together to mean less heat is lost and homeowners will benefit from saving on heating their park homes.

Many people though are struggling with rising fuel bills and still live in older, less well insulated homes. The campaigning work of AgeUK and others on behalf of park home residents in the recent past has a lot to do with this improvement in construction standards. However, for some, the problems they highlighted still remain.

We hope this quick guide helps to inform measures you can take to keep yourself and your park home warm this winter, without having to pull on those extra jumpers and coats just to keep comfortable and safe.

Insulation in your park home

For older park homes, it is well worth considering getting insulation fitted. This can be fitted externally, minimising any disruption to your park home’s interior and structure.

Double glazing

Adding an extra layer of glass to your windows enormously increases the energy efficiency of your home, allowing more heat to be retained for longer. The insulation provided also allows you to maintain a cooler ambient temperature in the summer months.

A new boiler or heating system

Before winter closes in, it is a good idea to get your existing boiler checked by an accredited gas engineer, to avoid outages during the winter. If your boiler is old, it is worth considering a new model as great advances have been made in energy efficiency and cost.

All of the above measures, insulation, double glazing and boiler replacement are potentially expensive but there is help out there. The government-backed ECO scheme is designed to tackle carbon emissions and help with fuel poverty. Depending on your personal circumstances, you may qualify for assistance in improving your home. The UK energy support website is a good place to start to find out if you are eligible for help under this or any other scheme.

For other government assistance with fuel bills, see our recent guide: Getting help with your park home energy bills.

For many, major changes to your heating system or park home’s structure will not be a realistic prospect at this late stage. There are still some simple things you can do to help improve your situation and help you to keep warm this winter.

  • Close your curtains at night-time. Curtains act as another layer of insulation keeping your rooms cosy and warm.
  • Move your sofa. Although you might like sitting near the radiator, moving your sofa allows warm air to move, heating the entire room.
  • Double check for any gaps. Make sure heat isn’t escaping from small gaps, covering these can also help reduce condensation.
  • Make sure ventilation is good in your park home. Clean the vents now before winter really sets in. This may seem counter intuitive but it really helps avoid condensation which can be a major cause of low temperatures inside a park home.
  • Avoid temperature differentials between rooms. Try to keep an ambient temperature consistently throughout your home. This will stop warm air suddenly vacating your main living space as soon as a door is opened. It will also help reduce the chance of condensation forming where warm air meets cold surfaces.
  • Keep doors closed between rooms. Along with a consistent ambient temperature, keeping doors closed between rooms as much as possible helps to maintain the warmth in your main living area and saves having to boost heating when you go to sleep to heat up the bedrooms.

We hope this short guide helps you keep warm in your park home this winter.

This is a marketing article from Park Home Assist, multi award-winning providers of residential park home insurance.  If you would like to speak to an advisor regarding insurance for your park home, please contact our friendly team in our Northampton office on 01604 946 796.

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Published – 10/12/21