Lucy Johnson and her husband have owned their beautiful Georgian townhouse in London for over 16 years. While it was once freezing in winter, it’s now a cosy home thanks to sustainable insulation
Lucy Johnson has such a passion for sustainability that she’s launched the world’s first ethical department store, Lovebrook & Green. With sustainability and environmental concerns so crucial to her, it was naturally a key factor when considering how to make her period property warmer in winter.
‘When we moved in, the property had single glazing and atrocious insulation,’ says Lucy. ‘Sometimes it was a bit like living in a wind tunnel.’
Wanting to make her home more comfortable to live in during the winter, while also reducing her carbon footprint and fuel bills, she turned to Mitchell & Dickinson to help solve the longstanding problem of heat loss and draughts.
The problem
Although beautiful, her Georgian townhouse’s original single-glazed windows and poor insulation meant the house was both difficult to heat and expensive to run.
‘I realised that we were heating the air outside our house with our gas heating,’ she says. ‘We were looking at really huge bills.’
Having followed Mitchell & Dickinson’s work over the years, Lucy and her husband felt confident in trusting them with their home insulation improvements.
‘There are a lot of builders out there who don’t know what they’re doing,’ she says, ‘but Mitchell and Dickinson are the people to go to. They’re experts who have been doing it for several decades.’
The installation
Lucy and her husband commissioned Mitchell & Dickinson to undertake the project in phases, beginning with the installation of CozyGlazing secondary glazing on the top floor and basement windows.
‘My husband was very reluctant at first,’ Lucy says, ‘but when the secondary glazing went in, he said, “I can barely see it.”’
Eventually, they expanded the job to include every window in the property. Mitchell & Dickinson also insulated the door and window seals throughout the house to form a discreet, unified barrier against the cold.
The results
Lucy says investing in proper insulation has helped her save over £3,000 on heating bills over the three-year period since Mitchell & Dickinson undertook the work in 2022.
‘We would have faced some really tricky heating bills,’ she says.
‘All in all, it was a real investment. We’ve taken our house from having an EPC of F or G up to a C, which has added value to the property. And the temperature is now much more comfortable.
‘Everybody has a tiny role to play,’ she says of the environmental benefits of the installation. ‘Doing our house and setting up my department store is the little part I’m playing.’
Lucy is now planning the second phase of insulation with Mitchell & Dickinson to maximise the energy efficiency of her Georgian home. She hopes to replace the roof and insulate it using natural, breathable materials like sheep’s wool.
