With rising living costs in all aspects of your life, everyone is looking for ways that they can save money and the home is one of the first places people look to. The average household spend on heating and energy was around £1254 from last year according to Money Super Market. This is a lot of money, but many households are not being as energy-efficient as they could be in saving energy. Many people think that energy-saving techniques will end up costing a lot of money but this is not always the case. Here’s a list of some quick tips on how to save energy before we go into more detail in our blog;
-
Turn appliances off at the plug rather than leaving on standby
-
Adjusting your thermostat by one degree can see great savings
-
Change your clothes wash from 40 to 30 degrees
-
Doing the washing up in a bowl rather than using a dishwasher is a huge saving
-
Draught proof your windows and doors to avoid heat loss.
Standby
One of the biggest wastes of energy is leaving your appliances on standby rather than turning them off at the plug. This is something that everyone is guilty of as it is easier to leave appliances switched on but it does actually waste a lot of energy. Just by switching your TV off at the plug you could actually save around £30 a year, with more gadgets this could save upwards of £80 a year. Although this isn’t a fortune, it’s a decent amount of money saved each year just for turning off a switch.
Thermostat
Another way that you can save money on your energy costs is by turning down your thermostat. Although this might seem like an obvious change, turning down your thermostat by just one degree can save up to £75 a year. You can also take this one step further and install a smart thermostat in your home to heat it more efficiently. With a smart thermostat, you can only heat the rooms that you are living in and it can be controlled on your phone. This means your home will still be warm by the time you get in but you can heat more efficiently.
Washing Clothes
Another top tip that can help to cut down money on your energy bills is to lower the temperature you wash clothes on. Many people use the automatic settings on their washing machines but lowering this from 40 to 30 degrees can save a sizeable amount. You could stand to save around £52 a year just from making this simple change and your clothes will be just as clean. You might want to run a hotter wash every now and then for stained items and to keep the machine clean.
Water
You can even save money on energy bills by watching the amount of water you use for washing up. By simply doing the washing up in a bowl rather than using a running tap you could save up to £25 a year. Another simple tip that can help you save money on water is to switch to an energy-efficient showerhead. By replacing a showerhead you can save £75 a year on your energy bills as the water is more evenly dispersed.
Draught Proofing
Our final tip to save money on your bills is to make sure you have properly draught proofed your home. A cold draught can mean your home doesn’t heat up which can leave you spending more on heating costs. You should make sure that you have draught-proofed all exterior facing areas of your home such as windows and doors. Seal any cracks in floors and skirting boards too and you could stand to save £25 or more on your heating costs.
Just by following these simple and cheap tips, you could end up saving a tidy £310 a year on your energy bills. Of course, there are more expensive ways to save energy that include installing a new boiler, installing double glazing and switching to energy-efficient appliances. But these can be costly in the first place so a great place to start is with these simple energy-saving tips.