Like everyone else, I am slightly terrified that the energy companies keep putting up their prices. Gas and electricity combined make up one of our biggest monthly bills. But how can you reduce your energy bills? There are some simple steps that you can take if you want to save money and benefit the environment. Why not do it now, before the weather changes and it gets really cold?
We choose to use a green energy tariff, which is slightly more expensive than a standard tariff. However, it is important to us that our energy is from an eco-friendly source as possible. We can’t afford solar panels at the moment to make our own! Paying more for our green energy means that it is even more important not to waste any.
We recently switched to Octopus and have been extremely happy with the service they provide, plus they are much cheaper than Good Energy, who we were with previously. This is my referral link. If you use it to sign up with them we will both earn a £50 credit.
I have been scouring the internet for advice on how you can reduce your energy bills and have come up with the following checklist.
Checklist to reduce your energy bills
1# Use energy saving bulbs (I am guessing we are all doing this, since it is difficult to buy the old kind now).
2# Try a cooler wash when doing the laundry – 30 degrees. I tend to use a 30-minute 30 degree wash for everything except the most grubby items these days.
3# You can reduce your energy bills significantly if you can avoid using a tumble dryer. Use airers or hang outside on a sunny day. If you have a family and therefore wash often, a heated airer
4# Don’t run your dishwasher unless it is full. We rarely use ours these days, but when I had family at home and worked full-time, it was a lifesaver at the end of a busy day. However, it went on once in the evening.
Turn it off
5# Go round the house and turn off everything at the plug that is left on standby. Culprits in my house are the phone chargers left plugged in and the TV (which has no off button – go figure!!). This we need to work on.
6# When you use the kettle, only boil the water you need. If you do boil more, stick it in a thermos and use it later for washing up.
7# Buy energy saving appliances. This is tricky if you have to buy second-hand, but not impossible if you do some research in advance. The last appliance I purchased was a large fridge freezer ,which is triple A rated for energy efficiency. This is worthwhile as it is on all the time!
Condensing boilers have a high energy efficiency rate of over 90%, which can lower your energy bills by a couple of hundred each year if your current boiler is non-condensing.
8# Check the Internet to see if you can find a better deal on your energy provider and if you can fix your tariff. I recommend starting with Money Saving Expert, which will help you avoid the pitfalls.
9# Train your family to turn off lights, TVs, etc!
10# Turn off laptops and PCs when they aren’t in use.
Take a shower
11# Have a shower rather than a bath – it will use a lot less hot water, which means you can adjust your timer and heat the boiler for less time. We are having more showers nowadays, not just to save energy but to reduce our water usage as well. Water is a utility that we often forget about when it comes to saving money. Think about how you can reduce your water usage and explore different types of water tanks to help you use less. For example, do you really need to use drinking water to flush your loo?.
12# You could also consider turning down the water temperature by adjusting the thermostat on your boiler. I did this by 1 degree and nobody noticed the difference.
13# Turn down your general thermostat. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that lowering your thermostat from 22 degrees to 21 could save £90 a year. You could experiment with lowering it further still, to see the level at which you still feel comfortable.
14# If you have a spare room, turn off the radiator when you have no guests and close the door.
15# Insulate your loft and wall cavities. We had ours done for free with British Gas. Check with your energy supplier to see what they offer. If you are in receipt of certain benefits you may be entitled to insulation and a new boiler, even if you don’t own your property.
16# Use draught excluders at the bottom of your doors and fit extra linings to your curtains.
17# Consider fitting reflective radiator foil behind your radiators. We have done this in a few rooms and really noticed the difference.
18# If you have your oven on, can you cook something else at the same time? How about flapjacks for the lunchboxes whilst you are doing tonight’s casserole? Although I am not a fan of gadgets generally, we find our Ninja air fryer invaluable to save energy. It cooks everything in half the time!
Good sites to look at for advice on how to reduce your energy bills are:
Have you any tips on how to reduce your energy bills?
Julia says
Hi. We do all of these plus pre-treat any stains and wash at 20 deg which works a treat! We use the microwave to heat water for hot drinks. Our hot water is “on” for an hour a day which is perfect as only the two of us most of the time. Our water usage is the equivalent of low to medium usage for a single person household, so we must be dong something right!
shoestringjane@outlook.com says
I think people tend to stock their hot water on for an allotted time and not think to reduce it. Ours is on for 2.5 hours a day but we have a lodger who likes a bath
Julia says
It’s amazing how much energy a kettle uses!
While we have between 3-5 of the kids living at home (each with their multiple devices!) we have no hope!
I’ve found Bulb to be good – and green – they tell me how many trees I’ve saved and how many cars I’ve taken off the road each month! They’re flexi-rate, and the cost went up a week after I joined, but the last 2 changes have been down again, so all is good.
I appreciate not everyone can do it – especially with the government reducing the incentives, but installing solar panels was one of the best investments we made. We now have a charging unit linked to it so we can charge the electric car using solar when the house isn’t taking it all for itself, or overnight during the cheap rate if it is – not that we need to charge more than once a fortnight or so!
shoestringjane@outlook.com says
I would love an electric car too! I have also heard good things about Bulb
Su says
I nearly always boil the pan of whatever I’m cooking for a couple of minutes and then turn off the ring. There’s sufficient heat to continue the cooking. It does take a little longer, but it’s a very simple thing to do and there’s no chance of it boiling over.
Good thick curtains are a must, in my opinion, too. It’s amazing the cold that comes off even double glazed windows. Most of my windows have 2 or even 3 layers of window dressing, mostly either homemade or bought from charity shops. And I have door curtains too.
Chris says
I have a Remoska, which looks like a saucepan but is actually an oven, you can cook anything you can cook in an oven from.a roast chicken to a loaf of bread. I also have a multi cooker. These save us a fortune in electricity I very seldom use my oven.