How energy efficient is your home?

27 April 2010, 12:04 | Updated: 27 April 2010, 13:11

If you live in Poole, you can now see how much electricity you could be wasting.

The Council has published an interactive "thermal" map on their website, showing how much heat is escaping from every home and business.

The idea is to help 56,000 residents and bosses in the Borough identify any heat loss, and then invest in insulation to cut their heating bills by making their properties more energy efficient.

The data also helps the Council find homes that may benefit from insulation grants.

It colour-codes each one's energy efficiency from green meaning "low" to red meaning "high". Most properties (47 per cent) are shown as yellow, or average. Just over a quarter fall within either the low or high bands.

The data was captured after a plane with an on-board thermal imaging camera was sent up over the area.

Andrew Flockhart, the Council's Strategic Director for the Environment said: "We are really pleased this information is now publicly available to help residents and businesses lower their energy bills and hope it will support Poole's efforts in facing the bigger challenge of reducing carbon emissions and tackling climate change."

The Borough of Poole says it wants to reduce carbon emissions by 25 per cent by April 2013.