Sidmouth residents are being offered a snapshot view of how effective their home insulation is.

The town council has purchased a thermal imaging camera that takes pictures showing the warmest and coldest areas of buildings. The photos indicate where heat is escaping, pinpointing the places where better insulation is needed.

A spokesman for the council said: “As we all know, keeping a house warm is expensive, wasting heat is wasting money. Also, no matter how your home is heated, wasting heat causes extra CO2 emissions, and that is bad for our nature, our valley, and our world.

“Sidmouth Town Council has an environment policy that wants to make Sidmouth a low carbon town. We as a town can reduce our emissions if we all as residents work to reduce ours individually. We therefore want to help you reduce your carbon emissions, but we also want to help you save money.”

In a thermal image, the hottest areas are displayed as yellow, and the colder ones in pink or purple. A thermal photo of the outside of a house may show the doors and windows radiating heat, indicating that the central heating system is working but the warmth is not being kept inside the building. A photo taken from inside will show the doors and windows as cold spots.

The images will also show areas of the building where moisture is accumulating, potentially leading to patches of mould.

The Sidmouth Town Council spokesman said: “We have a small team of volunteers who will visit interested householders to take photos, and these will be emailed to you.

“What you do next will be up to you. We cannot fix your home, but there are Government grants to help. There is plenty of advice already available on ways of improving your home insulation; if you know where the biggest heat loss is, you can focus your attention and money where it can be most effective.”

Anyone who would like to have a thermal image taken of their home is asked to email Sidmouth Town Council towncouncil@sidmouth.gov.uk to make contact with the volunteer team