Energy Saving Tips
It is easier than you might think to save enough energy to
significantly reduce your energy bills.
Here are the “Top 10” things you can do.
It’s true! By only boiling the water you need to make a hot drink (rather than filling the kettle up each time) - you could save around £120 per year on your electricity bill! - and if everyone did it, we would save enough electricity to power nearly 375,000 homes each year!
This could help cut your heating bills by 10%. You could improve on this by also fitting Thermostatic Radiator Valves, which will regulate the temperature in each room individually.
Leaving items on standby can easily cost the average household £37 per year. The same goes for phone chargers. If all chargers were unplugged every time they were not in use, the UK would save enough energy each year to power 180,000 homes and reduce CO2 emissions by 250,000 tonnes.
Conventional light bulbs waste a lot of their energy by turning it into heat. Replacing just one with an Energy Saving Recommended bulb will save up to £100 over the lifetime of the bulb.
Around 40% of all heat loss in a typical home is through the walls. It’s a straight forward job and should save you around £150 per year. Note that Energy Supply companies have to promote energy saving by law - and often have extremely competitive offers on for this work.
The current recommended thickness of loft insulation is 270mm or around 10inches. If you didn’t have loft insulation before, then installing the recommended amount could save you £200 a year on you fuel bill! Also you would reduce your homes Carbon emissions by around 1.5 tonnes. You can do it yourself - but take care not to block up any air vents in the eaves.
An “A” rated Fridge/Freezer will use up to 60% less energy than a poorly rated one - meaning a saving of around £40 per year. An energy saving Washing Machine uses over 30% less energy than a typical old one - saving you around £10 per year. See www.est.org.uk/myhome for details.
Boilers account for around 60% of domestic carbon emissions. If we all had the latest Gas Condensing Boilers, we would save enough energy to heat 3.7 million homes for a year! The potential savings are so great that by law, all new boilers fitted in England & Wales have to be of this type.
Washing clothes at 30°C uses over 30% less electricity than washing at 60°C - modern machines and powders are designed to wash at these lower temperatures - so you shouldn’t see any reduction in cleaning results
Apart from the obvious health benefits to walking, using your car for short journeys is very fuel-inefficient. Cars do not perform at their best until the engine and exhaust system is thoroughly heated up.
Source: The Energy Savings Trust www.est.org.uk
