You've probably got used to them. The bedroom that's always freezing. The windows you have to wipe down every morning. That one room where you can feel the draught but can never quite work out where it's coming from.

These aren't just minor annoyances you have to live with. They're your home telling you it's wasting energy - and your money.

Here are seven signs that your home isn't energy efficient, what they actually mean, and why ignoring them is costing you more than you think.

1. You're Wiping Condensation Off Your Windows Every Morning

If you wake up to condensation streaming down your windows, it's not just annoying - it's a sign your windows aren't doing their job.

Warm, moist air from inside your home hits the cold glass and turns into water. The water runs down, pools on the sill, and creates perfect conditions for black mould along the frame. Single-glazed windows are the worst culprits, but even old double glazing can fail and lose its seal.

Here's the real problem: that daily wipe-down is the least of it. The moisture damages your frames and can trigger respiratory issues. You'll end up replacing the windows anyway - but by then you've spent years being uncomfortable and watching mould creep across the sills.

Modern double or triple glazing keeps the inside pane warm enough that condensation doesn't form in the first place.

2. Snow Melts on Your Roof (When Your Neighbours' Doesn't)

Next time it snows, take a look at your street. Notice how some roofs stay white whilst others have patches of melted snow? That's not random.

Heat is escaping through your roof and melting the snow from underneath. Well-insulated homes keep the heat inside, so the snow stays put on the cold roof surface.

If heat's escaping through your roof in winter, your heating system is working overtime to replace it. You're essentially heating the sky. In older homes with poor or no loft insulation, up to 25% of your heat can disappear through the roof.

That melted snow also runs into your gutters, refreezes on cold nights, and forms ice dams that block drainage and damage your roofline.

3. Some Rooms Are Always Freezing (And Others Are Fine)

Your bedroom's arctic. The living room's tolerable. The kitchen's actually quite warm. You've convinced yourself this is just how houses work.

It's not.

Uneven temperatures usually point to one of three things: poor insulation in specific areas (external walls, floors, or ceilings letting heat escape), radiators that need bleeding or balancing, or draughts around windows, doors, or where services enter the room.

The result? You end up overheating the rest of your home trying to get that one cold room comfortable. Or you just avoid using certain rooms entirely - which is ridiculous when you think about it. The solution depends on which of those three issues you're dealing with, but they're all fixable.

4. You Can Feel Draughts But Can't Find Where They're Coming From

There's a cold spot by the sofa. A persistent draught in the hallway. You've checked the obvious places but can't pinpoint the source.

Air is leaking through gaps you probably can't see - around window and door frames, through letterboxes, where pipes enter through walls, around electrical sockets on external walls, between floorboards, down unused chimneys. Older properties are particularly bad for this. Decades of building movement, poor original construction, or retrofitted services all create pathways for cold air to sneak in.

These draughts make rooms feel colder than they actually are. Your body loses heat faster in moving air, so even a slightly draughty room feels properly cold. You turn the heating up to compensate, wasting energy heating air that's constantly being replaced with cold air from outside.

Finding and sealing these gaps makes an immediate difference.

5. There Are Cold Patches on Walls or Floors

Put your hand against the wall or floor in certain rooms and it feels distinctly cold. Internal walls and floors shouldn't feel like this - they're not supposed to be in direct contact with the outside.

This is often a "cold bridge" - where something is conducting cold from outside to inside. In homes built with cavity walls (most properties from the 1920s onwards), there's a gap between the internal and external wall layers. Without cavity wall insulation, cold air in that gap creates cold spots. Solid wall properties (typically pre-1920s) conduct cold directly through the masonry. And floors - particularly suspended timber floors with no insulation underneath - can feel ice cold because there's nothing stopping cold air from the void below coming through.

Cold surfaces make the whole room feel colder, even when the air temperature is reasonable. They also create condensation risk - warm, moist air hits the cold surface and you get damp patches and mould, particularly in corners and behind furniture.

6. You've Got Mould or Damp Patches That Keep Coming Back

You've cleaned it off. Maybe even painted over it. But the black mould keeps reappearing in the same spots - bedroom corners, behind wardrobes, around windows, bathroom walls.

Mould grows where warm, moist air meets cold surfaces. Those cold surfaces are usually caused by poor insulation creating cold spots, combined with inadequate ventilation that traps moisture inside. The usual problem areas: corners where two external walls meet, behind furniture placed against external walls, around window frames, bathrooms and kitchens without proper ventilation.

Mould isn't just unsightly - it's a health issue, particularly for anyone with asthma or respiratory conditions. It's also a sign that moisture is trapped in your walls, which damages the building structure over time. More importantly, it tells you that your home's insulation and ventilation are out of balance. Fix one without the other and you just move the problem around.

7. Your Energy Bills Make You Wince

You dread the winter months because you know what's coming - heating bills that make you question whether you can actually afford to be comfortable in your own home.

If you're spending significantly more than neighbours with similar-sized homes, or if you have to keep your heating on high just to maintain a reasonable temperature, your home is leaking energy somewhere. The problem is usually a combination of the issues above - poor insulation, draughts, inefficient heating systems, or all three working against you.

Energy prices aren't going down. Every year you leave these problems unfixed, you're throwing money away. A home that costs £2,500 a year to heat could potentially cost under £1,000 with the right improvements - that's £1,500 a year you could be spending on literally anything else.

What These Signs Actually Mean

If you recognised multiple signs from this list, here's what you're actually dealing with:

You're spending hundreds or thousands of pounds a year that you don't need to. You're wearing jumpers indoors, avoiding certain rooms, never being properly warm in your own home. Damp and mould are affecting your respiratory system, cold temperatures are causing aches and stiffness. You're constantly adjusting thermostats, wiping windows, cleaning mould, managing discomfort. And every winter brings the same dread about bills and the same frustration with a home that doesn't work properly.

Most people have lived with these issues for so long they've normalised them. But you shouldn't have to choose between being comfortable and being able to afford your energy bills.

What to Do About It

If you recognised multiple signs from this list, your home is probably trying to tell you something.

The good news: these problems are fixable. The better news: you don't have to figure it all out yourself.

A professional home assessment identifies exactly which issues are affecting your home, what's causing them, and what order to fix them in. Not generic advice - specific recommendations for your property.

Here's the thing: trying to fix these issues one at a time, without understanding how they connect, often makes things worse. Install insulation without sorting ventilation and you can create mould problems. Replace windows without addressing draughts elsewhere and you've wasted money on partial improvement.

Your home is a system. It needs to be diagnosed and improved as a system.

Want to understand what's actually going on in your home? See how we help you work out what needs fixing and in what order - based on your actual property, not generic advice.