5 Top Tips For Saving Energy at Home

Winter is well and truly here and it’s the time of year when we typically spend more of our spare time at home cosying up on the sofa with a book or in front of a film. However, with the cost of living on the rise, it’s more important than ever to ensure that you have a handle on how much energy you are using so that there are no nasty surprises when your bill comes through.

Ensuring that you’re more energy savvy at home is not only good for the bank balance, it will also have a positive impact on the environment, helping to lower harmful emissions that contribute to climate change.

With National Cut Your Energy Costs Day taking place on 10th January, there’s no better time to think about the small and bigger ways that you can save energy in your home.

Smart Energy Monitors

Smart energy monitors are wireless devices that transmit information from your smart metre to a small portable display that you can move around your home, showing how much energy you have used in real-time.

This handy piece of tech is a great way to keep a tab on how much energy you are using day-to-day and where you are using it, which is a brilliant tool for helping to cut down on energy costs.

Using a smart energy monitor is also a good way of accurately predicting how much your bill is likely to be, meaning no nasty surprises at the end of the month.

Draught Proofing

This one may sound simple, but draught proofing your home is one of the most effective, and cheapest ways to save energy in your home. Ensuring that there are no gaps around doors, windows and fireplaces in your property is a savvy way to cut your cost on energy bills as pesky gaps that allow either warm air out or cold air in will require you to have your heating on for longer stretches to properly heat your home.

One of the benefits of living in a new property is that you are much less likely to have original windows with single glazing and doors that have become warped in the frame which are two of the main culprits for letting draughts into your home.

For this reason and others, new build homes are typically more energy efficient and cost less to run than older homes. Read our previous post to learn more about the eco-friendly and energy-saving benefits of living in a new home.

 

Turn it off

Perhaps the most simple tip of all is ensuring that you turn off any lights or appliances at the wall when not in use.

Leaving appliances on standby when not in use means that they are still using energy so it’s important to make sure that you turn them off at the wall once you’re finished using them.

Data from the Energy Saving Trust shows that you can save around £65 (£30 in NI) a year just by remembering to turn your appliances off standby  mode. Almost all electrical appliances can be turned off at the plug without upsetting their programming.

To make life easier, why not plug your appliances into a power board, this way you only have to remember to turn one thing off.

If you’re prone to leaving the lights on, then swap your bulbs for LEDs which are much more energy efficient than traditional bulbs and will cost less per hour to use with the same amount of light output.

Remembering to turn off your appliances when not in use will also help you to save money on your energy bills!

 

Make the switch

When browsing for a new home appliance such as a fridge or television, it’s not only important to think about the brand, colour and any special features that this appliance may have but also, to ensure that you’re getting the best long-term value for money, it’s important also to take into account the appliance’s energy efficiency.

An appliance energy rating determines how efficient a machine runs based on the energy it consumes during typical use. To find out this information, look out for the energy label. The energy label will tell you how much energy that appliance uses, comparing it to similar appliances.

Turn it down to 30

According to the Energy Saving Trust, washing your clothes at 30 degrees rather than higher temperatures will save around 40% of the energy used each year. Modern washing powders and detergents work just as effectively at lower temperatures.

If you have any other handy tips for saving energy, share them with us over on our Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or Instagram profiles.