8 Easy Ways To Cut Your Energy Bills By £300+, Even In Winter
On Wednesday, September 16, 2020 -
Can you feel the winter chill in the air yet? As we hit September and October, many of us just accept that we’re going to use more energy in our homes, and that our bills might go up. We need the lights on more, the heating’s probably coming on for a bit now and then… it’s just the time of year. If you pay for your energy by direct debit, then your provider knows you’ll spend more at some times of year than others and average it out so you pay the same amount each month. But, with these tips, you can get your energy usage – and your bills – down. And yes, even in winter!
Turn your appliances off-off
We all do it: grabbing the remote to turn the TV off when we’re done watching it, just closing a laptop when you’re finished with it rather than shutting it down, or even not turning the dishwasher off properly when it’s finished running.
But, leaving your electronics and gadgets on standby rather than turning them off properly could be costing you an extra £35 a year in electricity. It’s not exactly the big bucks, but it also wipes out over a million tonnes of carbon emissions, so every little helps, right?
Tweak your thermostat
In September and October time, it’s often cold enough first thing in the morning for your central heating to kick in, depending on your thermostat settings. And it always comes as a bit of a surprise, doesn’t it? The heating on? Already?
If your heating’s coming on and you don’t think you need it yet, then tweaking your thermostat to turn it down by just one or two degrees means your heating won’t kick in until it’s a tiny bit colder. Then, it keeps your rooms at an ever so slightly lower temperature. You probably won’t notice the difference, but you will notice the saving. The Energy Saving Trust reckon that turning your thermostat down by just one degree could save you about £75 a year, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but remember, we’re all about the small changes that add up!
Better yet, install a smart thermostat
Installing a smart thermostat like those available from Nest and Hive (other brands are available) gives you even more control over how and when you heat your home. Traditional thermostats are often fiddly to change and only allow a set number of options to schedule your heating throughout the day. A smart thermostat allows you to completely customise your heating schedule to fit around you, so it’s never running when you don’t need it for maximum cost efficiency!
With a few extra accessories, you can even use a smart thermostat to customise which rooms of your house you heat when. Know you’ll be upstairs for the first hour of the day? Set it up so your downstairs radiators come on an hour later. Only want the heating on in your bedroom after 9pm? Sorted.
But is it worth it? The Energy Saving Trust say the typical saving is about £60 a year, which is probably less than a Hive, Nest or similar will cost you. But over the years, it’ll pay for itself and then some!
Switch out your lightbulbs
Lightbulbs have on quite the journey over the last few years. They’ve evolved from regular incandescent bulbs that use as much energy creating heat as they do light, to fluorescent energy-saving bulbs which do the trick from an efficiency point of view, but don’t always seem to get as bright as you’d like, and now, we have LEDs. LED lightbulbs are pretty much the best of both worlds – all the brightness of a traditional lightbulb, with all the efficiency and then some of an energy-saving bulb.
But, the biggest benefit of LED bulbs in our opinion, though, is that they last longer than both traditional bulbs and energy-saving bulbs, so you’ll spend less on running them to the tune of £40 a year, and won’t need to replace them as often. And, if you really like the retro vibe that comes with traditional incandescent bulbs, you can now buy LED bulbs deliberately designed to look like they have filaments in them. Energy savvy and stylish!
Buy draught excluders
Heat has a knack of sneaking out of your home through every nook and cranny. To an extent it has to because ventilation is important to keep us safe in our homes, which is why we have extractor fans, wall vents, and air bricks.
But, air also slips out through our windows and doors, taking much-needed heat with it, even when we have them closed and bolted. To be a bit more energy efficient and save on your bills, invest in a few draught excluders to place around your doors, especially those that lead outside, and some self-adhesive foam strips to stick to draughty windows. The Energy Saving Trust reckon there’s about £20 a year to be saved by doing a bit of draught-proofing round your windows and doors, and another £19 from installing a draught excluder on your chimney, but remember to be careful blocking up draughts in rooms like kitchens and bathrooms where lots of moisture is produced (as this can lead to damp), and around your fireplace, if you have one.
Change energy suppliers
Shopping around and switching who provides your electricity and gas every year or two is perhaps the single biggest way to take a chunk out of your energy bills. When you sign up with an energy supplier, you usually get a “fixed term” deal that gives you cheaper rates for a set amount of time. Once that time is up, you’ll go onto their standard tariff, which is a bit more expensive. These standard tariffs have their prices capped by Ofgem to protect people from paying way over the odds, but even with price caps a typical household on a standard tariff could still stand to save £305 a year by switching to a cheaper deal.
Swap your shower head
Especially in the winter, there’s a certain something about having a long, hot shower to get nice and toasty at the start or end of the day. But, this’ll be costing you not only in the amount of water you’re using, but the electricity or gas to heat that water, too. Switching to a water efficient shower head will mean you can continue to enjoy your long soaks and will use much less water – and by extension electricity or gas on heating it. Exactly what you can save depends on your current set up and what you already pay for your water, but the Energy Saving Trust estimate that for a 4-person household with gas water heating and a water meter could save £53 a year on the water itself, and £38 a year on heating it!
If you can manage to spend just a minute less in the shower as well, then this could mean a saving of £8 a year per person. For a family of four, that means saving £75 a year, just for spending a minute less in the shower every day!
Lights out
This one is the oldest trick in the energy-saving book. Not in a room? Turn the light off. It’s as simple as that. Even if you only leave the room for a few minutes, the light will use less energy restarting than it would have if you’d left it on the whole time. And, getting into the habit of flipping the light switch when you leave a room can shave £15 a year off your energy bills. Just make sure you’re not plunging the rest of your household into darkness turning off lights when just you and not everyone is out of a room!
Looking for more out of the box ideas to cut energy costs at home? Try some of these whacky ideas and see what you could save!