Cosy Thame

Helping Thame Residents save money on heating bills

From its start in August 2022, the Cosy Thame project is has been about encouraging and enabling everyone to look at their home or business premises and work out how to insulate it from the cold.  Keep the heat in and keep the fuel bills low.

Thame has a thermal imaging camera provided by Thame Green Living and bought with a grant from Low Carbon Hub Oxford

If you want to see how much heat your home or business building is losing you’ve got two options:

    • Train as a Thermal Champion.    A free two-hour workshop teaches you how to use the camera and how to interpret the results. You’ll then be able to borrow the camera from Thame Town Hall. Although there is no fee for taking part, you will be asked to survey at least 2 other local properties – either homes or business premises.    There are no workshops scheduled at the moment, so if you are interested in taking part in future workshops please register your interest using the form on the right.

    • Contact a Thermal Champion to carry out the survey for you. You’ll be asked for a £10 donation to Thame Green Living. To contact a Thermal Champion email Cosy Thame: cosythame@gmail.com

The thermal imaging survey works best when it’s really cold outside, below 3C, and you’ve got your heating on. That way the difference in temperature shows up really clearly. So the project really only gets going in mind-November.

If you think your home is leaking warmth into the street there’s a lot you can do about it.

Low Carbon Oxford North: Their six Housewarming Guides are a great source of information on how to make your home more fuel efficient.

Low Carbon Hub Oxfordshire: This social enterprise has brought together advice and links to trusted contractors on this website to help you improve your home’s thermal efficiency and save money.

Cosy Homes Oxfordshire: How to retrofit your home to improve its thermal efficiency. Includes a free planning tool.

Citizens Advice Thame: If you’re on a low income they can help you get access to grants and ways to save money on fuel.

Other ways to get involved:

  • Draught Excluders: Reducing draughts in the home reduces the need to turn up the heating.  Draught excluders are just on way of achieving this and in 2022 a project developed as a partnership between Citizens Advice and A Stitch in Thame to produce them for anyone locally who wanted one. Although the official project has ended, if anyone wanted to get involved in making them in their own time for those who want one, please do get in touch.
  • Case Studies: We want to show the difference thermal efficiency makes to homes both in terms of cosiness, economy, and green impact. If you’re planning to make changes to improve the thermal efficiency of your home then please get in touch. We would love to share your journey and can try to help you with monitoring before and after the changes you make.
  • Fuel Poverty: If you know somebody who’s likely to suffer hardship because of rising fuel prices then get in touch with us. Or, if you’d like to help somebody who’s trying to keep their home cosy this winter then please get in touch.

History of Cosy Thame

In the pilot phase of this project in 2022 a fly over of Thame was arranged with Rubicon Drones, using a Thermal Imaging camera. This was followed by Thermal Imaging of individual buildings both residential and business. Here are links to some of the videos created:

We were unable to get round all the houses that requested a thermal image 2022 because we could only borrow a camera for a few weeks. In order to allow more surveys to be completed, Cosy Thame applied for, and was awarded a grant from Low Carbon Hub, to buy a thermal imaging camera for residents in Thame to use. David Dawson, who originally set up Cosy Thame said

“There was a lot of enthusiasm for our thermal snapshot service. We managed to offer snapshots to two thirds of those residents who applied for them. We couldn’t help everyone because it was difficult to borrow a camera when the weather conditions were right. With this grant we’ll always have a camera on hand.”

In March 2023, Cosy Thame ran a feedback session for Thame residents at the town hall to show them the common reasons homes leak heat. You can watch the session here: https://bit.ly/CosyThameFeedback

  • draft-excluders
  • insulation
  • draft-excluders
  • insulation

Get Involved

    Phoenix Energy Community Phoenix Energy Community Phoenix Energy Community Phoenix Energy Community Phoenix Energy Community