Are you worried about the sharp rise in energy prices? Learn how to save energy in homes and lower your gas, electricity and water bills. As energy prices soar, saving energy at home has never been more important.

According to a survey by Citizens Advice and the Energy Saving Trust, a third of households have not attempted to reduce their energy consumption in recent years.

If you include some energy-saving tips in your routine, your house will not only be warm in winter, but it can also help you make real money savings.

If every household would made only a few changes to save energy, the overall impact could have a profound impact on finances as well as on our environment.

If you’re worried about how to save energy in homes, these small changes can make a big difference, as they will help reduce the unnecessary waste of hard-earned money.

1.) Lower the thermostat by one degree

Just moving the thermostat knob down from 25 to 24 degrees could save households a lot of money.

Another broken myth is that it’s cheaper to have low heating all the time. Apparently, 46% of us believe it is true, but it is not. According  to the Energy Saving Trust, you can save some money per year by using a (smart) thermostat to regulate the temperature.

In bedrooms, lowering the thermostat by an extra degree lower can also be a cost-effective and energy-efficient solution and you can rather add one blanket more to the bed (have you heard of electric blankets?).

2.) Replace old bulbs for the new LED bulbs

You probably know that switching from old bulbs to efficient LED bulbs — or better yet, smart lighting and easy-to-turn bulbs on and off (even via phone/app) can seriously impact your wallet. But did you know how much you can save?

According to the Energy Saving Trust, replacing a 100-watt incandescent lamp with LEDs could save energy and thus around £20 per light bulb per year (based on the average energy price cap).

LED bulbs consume a fraction of the electricity compared to conventional incandescent bulbs. Most LEDs use at least 75% less energy, which saves you a lot of money.

3.) Turn off the lights

Turning on the lights in a room when you’re away from it may sound trivial, but it’s so easy to forget that the last time you turned off the lights. According to the Energy Saving Trust, an average four-person household could save around £35 just by turning off the lights in rooms where there are no people or not in use.

4.) Do not leave appliances or devices in standby mode

One way everyone (owners and tenants alike) can save energy and money is to do one simple thing with our appliances – some of us could save hundreds of pounds. This simple thing is turning off unused appliances and appliances in our homes.

The Energy Saving Trust revealed that homeowners could save around £80 a year if they disconnected devices from standby.

Apparently, it is not possible to help but that some devices, such as a refrigerator or freezer, must be on all the time. However, we have many other devices in our homes that do not need to be turned on and that would make sense to disconnect from the electricity network.

Objects such as TVs or smart speakers consume energy, which is known as the “phantom load.” This is the way in which energy is extracted invisibly without users necessarily knowing about it.

While the average household could spend around £180 a year on its phantom load, they could save over £3.5 billion in an average country if all their residents switched off devices that don’t need to be non stop turned on.

5.) Wait until the washing machine is fully full

A survey by Thames water and Gov.uk even found that 68% of households only turn on the dishwasher and washing machine when they are fully full in order to save energy. It’s a smart move to wait for the washing machine or dishwasher to charge, as these devices will use the same amount of energy as if you have less content in them.

Therefore, it is wiser to wait for fewer washes with more laundry than to waste energy on more washes with a half-filled machine.

6.) Avoid dryer

Dryers consume a shocking amount of energy, their operation can cost more than a good 200 pounds per year (when used twice a week). Knowing kWh, you can easily calculate how much it costs to start a dryer based on your specific model.

As a more cost-effective alternative, consider drying clothes outside on a washer rope or clothes drying stand.

7.) Change the shower head

According to npower, more than four out of five of us (81%) believe that showering uses less water than a bath itself. Still, a strong shower could soak you with 50 liters of water more than putting that water in a bathtub.

The Energy Saving Trust predicts that a water-saving shower head would save households up to around £100 per year. One minute less in the shower can save you up to around 130 pounds a year.

Modern shower heads use flow limiting technology to save up to 40% of water consumption when showering under normal water pressure. So if you’re tired of dripping, dripping, dripping from your old shower head (and which is most commonly still covered with limescale by the way), now is the right time to give it up. This will cost you around 20-50£, but in the long run it will save you on costs.

8.) Service the heat pump and heating system regularly

The key to lower energy bills is definitely an energy-efficient home that starts with your heat pump and heating system. The pump boiler must be serviced once a year to ensure its good performance.

Having a false or faulty pump and heating system can certainly waste energy and increase energy bills, so inspection will show the problems that can cause this. Therefore, this is essential if you want to provide energy-efficient heating at home. Less waste means less spending and less money on bills.

9.) Take proper care of your radiators (maintenance, venting and cleaning)

Already feeling the benefits of your central heating system? Check if your radiators are working well. If the top of the radiator feels cooler than the lower part of the radiator, it probably needs to be vented to get rid of the air that has caught up in the meantime.

Learning to vent the radiator is surprisingly easy, and the whole process takes only 10 minutes.

When the living room is like a stretched space, it may be tempting to push the sofa or armchair against the radiator. Just resist to this desire or temptation, say warm-up experts.

Anything placed above or next to the radiator will block the flow of air, causing it to emit less heat and make the boiler (or heat pump) work harder – which will cost you even more money ofcourse.

If you move the sofa only six centimeters away from the radiator, it will allow heat to circulate around the room much more efficiently. The more space you have between furniture and radiators, the better.

If you notice dark spots at the bottom of the radiator when the heating is at full strength, it may mean that you have accumulated stools. This is a sign that your radiators need to be well cleaned so that the warm water circulates properly again.

10.) Leave blinds or curtains open or abrased longer

Make the most of the sun’s heat and natural light in summer. Especially during the warm summer months, try to keep them open until sunset.

Natural light and heat can help you save about 60% on your bills compared to the lights on permanently.

But for the winter, of course, the opposite applies. A lot of heat can be lost through windows and walls. Stop any heat leakage by closing the curtains and stuck them behind the radiator in the evening.

11.) Check attic insulation

A quarter of the heat at home is lost through poorly insulated roof spaces. Check that your roof insulation has a depth between 250 and 270mm to make sure you’re not losing all that precious heat from your roof.

This may sound a bit repetitive, but it’s our main advice, which is the most effective way to save on your energy bills. Make sure they are properly insulated to minimize heat loss and save on energy bills: attic, roof, draft protection, windows, doors, pipelines, tanks, radiators…

A well-insulated home means you won’t have to rely on boilers or air conditioners to adjust the temperature of your home. Experts estimate that good insulation could save up to €600 per year on energy bills.

12.) Move furniture away from the outer walls

Your arrangement of furniture can greatly affect how warm or cold you feel in a room. If you are in a situation where you often increase heating and your sofa is adjacent to the outer wall, try moving it to the inner wall.

If you can arrange your house so that most of the furniture stands along the inner walls, it should be warmer for you. You will feel the heat from the whole house, instead of the cold penetrating from the outside. This should allow you to keep heating on for a shorter time and reduce your bill costs by 5-10%.

13.) Lay the carpet

Research shows that carpets and other floor coverings can cut energy bills by over £100 in 10 years. Well, in fact, the initial cost of a quality carpet during its service life can be recovered by significant energy savings.

According to the National Energy Foundation,  the average house loses 10% of its heat due to non-insulated floors. A quality carpet combined with a lining can provide sufficient insulation to prevent 15 times more heat leakage than the same thickness of standard fiberglass floor insulation.

The trick to maximizing insulation is to combine the carpet with the right base for your needs. This will increase the overall ’R-value’ (the so-called measure of resistance to heat flow through the material) of the floor covering and help extend the life of the carpet itself.

Article source:
www.idealhome.co.uk