Working Towards an Energy Efficient Home
There are many steps you can take to make your home more energy efficient. From improving your house’s insulation to installing forms of renewable energy sources, we’ll talk you through a number of tips that could help you save money on gas and electricity.
By following these steps you could save yourself around £280 a year on your home’s energy bills.
Step 1 – Insulate Your Home
One of the main ways in which your house will lose the energy that is supposed to be heating it, is through your ceilings and windows. This means that you’ll be paying a lot more to heat your home than you would be if you had the proper insulation.
It is well established that 25% of the heat produced in your home is lost through the roof. By installing insulation in your attic and ceiling, you will keep heat inside your house for longer and therefore have to produce less of it to achieve the same affects.
It is not only during the winter months that you will benefit from having good insulation. During the summer months your insulation will help keep cool air inside your house and therefore reduce the costs of running air conditioning units.
Insulating your roof typically costs around £300, this will save you over £100 per year on average. If you are planning to be in your current home for a long time, then this could be a great way to save yourself some money on your energy bills.
Step 2 – Find out how efficient your boiler is
In a typical UK household, the cost of running the boiler is more than the cost of running all the other appliances combined. On average a boiler accounts for 55% of all energy bills in a home.
If you want to make sure that you’re not spending too much on running your boiler, you may want to check its efficiency levels. The SEDBUK (Seasonal Efficiency of Domestic Boilers in the UK) rating system was designed to allow households to be able to determine how efficiently their boiler produces energy. The rating system works on a scale from A-G with A being the most efficient and G being the least efficient.
To find out how efficient your boiler is, simply use a boiler efficiency lookup tool. This will allow you to select the exact make and model of your boiler and see how well it did in the efficiency rating.
Step 3 – Check your windows
One area which a lot of people over look when redoing their home, in a bid to make it more energy efficient, is their windows. A lot of your home’s heat is lost through your windows and this will be even worse if you have windows that are not energy efficient.
If your windows have aluminium frames, they will lose heat at a much greater rate than if they had frames made out of something like vinyl.
Your windows will also lose heat a lot more quickly if they are single paned, as opposed to double or triple paned. Having multiple panes works even better if the spaces between the panes are filled with argon. Argon is a hugely effective insulator and can help your windows trap the heat inside your house, as well as keeping the cold air out.
One of the most simple ways to save money, with regards to your windows is to leave the blinds open during sunny days. This will not only save you money on electricity that you use to light your home but it will also save you money on heating your home as the sunlight will do that for free!
On days that are not so sunny or in the evenings, you can save money by installing a heavier set of curtains. These curtains will help you save money on your heating bills as they will act as a very cheap insulation system.
Step 4 – Change up your old appliances
Most older appliances are just not as energy efficient as their newer counterparts. When trying to decide which type of new appliance to switch to, make sure you check which ones come with the stamp of approval known as “Energy Star”. This means that the appliance has been certified as energy efficient.
Whilst you may not want to run out to the shops and buy a new appliance immediately, it is definitely worth considering when the time comes to purchase a new one. Doing so will help you to get cheaper gas and electricity bills in the long run.
Step 5 – Install some solar panels
One great way to save money on your electricity bills is to install some solar panels on your house. Whilst this means a fairly large initial expenditure, a good system of solar panels can actually produce up to 75% of the electricity required to power your whole house. This means that once you’ve installed these solar panels, you’ll be receiving most of your home’s electricity absolutely free!
Typically a system of solar panels can be expected to save an average household around £645 per year. If, however, you install a system that actually produces more energy than your house needs, there are many available electricity tariffs that allow you to sell this energy back to the main power grid. This means that you could be turning this excess electricity into profit. These types of electricity tariffs are known as Feed-In tariffs, it’s a good idea to run an energy comparison of the feed-in plans that are available to you.
Step 6 – Switch to a cheaper energy supplier
Of all the ways to save money on your gas and electricity bills, finding a cheaper energy supplier is among the easiest. By paying less for your gas and electricity you’ll free up more of your budget to spend on other energy saving methods.
Switching energy supplier is simple and doesn’t have to take more than 15 minutes. All you need to do is compare prices by using our free and impartial energy comparison service. To do this you simply need to input your postcode and your energy usage into our comparison tool. In just a few seconds we’ll show you a list of all the best energy deals that are available to you.
In addition to showing you how much money each plan will save you, we’ll also show you other important details about these plans. Each companies customer satisfaction ratings will be displayed, along with information about how much green energy each company uses.
If you do choose to switch to a cheaper energy supplier through our website, we’ll handle the whole process for you; sorting out the paperwork and contacting the supplier on your behalf. You don’t need to worry about contacting your old supplier at any point and your household’s energy supply will not be disrupted at any point during your switch.