JessM, no, timber frame with wattle and daub or brick. the brick is only one brick thick so some bed rooms used to be almost unuseable in winter until we drylined the walls.
Like everyone we are going to have to take big breath and plan when our fuel bills come in, but we will also hope to keep improving our insulation. More internal double glazing and seeing if the Local Authority will allow us to replace the single glazed window in our 1960s extension with professional double glazed windows.
But even as people worry about fuel bills I am amazed to see how few people shut their curtains at night, or have properly lined curtains, or even have have long life bulbs and how many seem to have every light on in the house all the time.
On the lighting front LED bulbs are replacing 'traditional' low energy bulbs. Our study and kitchen are both lit by two 3 spotlight bars, 6 bulbs in all. 10 years ago we had traditional 60 watt bulbs in them. When the study lights were on, and our study lights are on most of the time as the room is dark and we spend a lot of time there, they were consuming 360 watts of energy. We replaced them with 14 watt fluorescent bulbs, bringing consumption down to 84 watts. They are now being replaced by 4 watt LED bulbs, which brings total energy consumption for those rooms for lighting down to 24 watts, a 67% reduction in energy consumption on lighting over 10 years.
Like when the low energy bulbs came in LED bulbs can be quite expensive at the moment, although the new bulbs for our spots were only about £3.00 each. The range available is also limited. We have a lot of candle bulbs in our house and there are no satisfactory LED candle bulbs for most of these, and the ones that are available are about to £15.00 each so we wont be buying those, but over the next two or three years they also should come down in price and their range will extend. Although our electricity bills will not go down by two thirds when we have LEDs everywhere it should bring our electricity bill down by 10 - 20%