Save over £400 a year with 5 great winter energy saving tips
As temperatures fall and the cost of living rises, many of us are wondering how to save on energy bills in winter.
With keeping warm and staying solvent in mind, we’ve come up with five ingenious tips to save money on your energy bills this winter. These clever hacks not only make energy saving easy, but they could also knock more than £400 a year off your heating costs.
1. Go with the flow
One of the easiest ways to reduce heating bills is by reducing the flow temperature on your boiler. The flow temperature is the heat at which water leaves the boiler to warm up your radiators, and the default setting is usually too high. Radiators need hot water at 60 degrees, but your boiler’s flow temperature is usually set at 70 – 80 degrees. Just follow a simple set of guidelines to start saving money.
You could save £112 per year
2. Ditch the draughts
When draughts enter your home, your central heating system is forced to work harder to maintain the temperature (therefore costing you more). If it’s not easy to detect drafts, you could use an infrared thermometer to discover where the cold air is getting in.
When you’ve identified the cold spots, either plug them yourself or call in a professional to draught-proof your property.
You could save £45 per year
3. Leave the laundry out
Tumble driers are expensive to run. Depending on which type of drier you own, a single use for a model with an 8kg load could be anywhere between .74p and £1.99. Leaving your laundry to air dry on a rack will reduce your energy usage, but don’t be tempted to put clothing on radiators, as this makes your boiler work harder.
One way to reduce drying time is to use the spin setting on your washing machine twice. Alternatively, using a dehumidifier is a surprisingly effective way to dry clothes.
You could save £70 per year.
4. Shrink your shower time
We all love a long, hot shower in winter time. But you could save a big chunk of money from your annual heating bill by reducing your shower time to just four minutes. Set a timer for the first few showers until you’ve established your new bathroom routine.
You could save: £70 per year
5. Re-think your thermostat setting
You can make one of the biggest savings of all when you reduce your thermostat temperature by just one degree. A comfortable room temperature is somewhere between 18 – 21 degrees. It’s unlikely you’ll even notice if you take the temperature down a little, but your bank balance will certainly feel the difference.
You could save £128 per year.
These five winter energy saving tips to use at home could save you a total of £425 a year.
If you are thinking of moving to a more energy-efficient property, why not get in touch? Alternatively, our experienced In House tradespeople can help you improve insulation and install more energy efficient appliances.
