Improve your home's energy efficiency
- Put reflective surfaces behind your radiators.
- Turn your thermostat down 1 degree (alt:Turn your thermostat down to 21C)
- Treat your hot water tank – give it a jacket! (It only costs a few pounds and pays for itself within months.)
- Line your curtains (with material from a charity shop, if possible!) Also, closing your curtains at dusk will stop heat escaping through windows.
- Check your loft insulation is sound.
- Look for cavities… around 33% of the heat loss in your home is through the walls. Cavity insulation can often be added.
- Check your boiler – if it’s over 15 years old, it’s probably time you replaced it with a new energy efficient one.
- When the days are shorter you’ll be relying on your lights more. Trade up your ordinary light bulbs for energy saving ones.
- Stop draughts and stop heat escaping by filling gaps under skirting boards with newspaper, beading or mastic sealant.
- Double-glazing cuts heat loss through windows by 50%.
Why? All these save energy and stop the planet from warming up (and will probably save you money in the long run… feel free to give any money saved to those who need it more than you do!)
Link: The energy saving trust can put you in touch with free advice for your local area.
Related actions:
Switch To Good (Green And / Or Socially Resonsible) Energy
Switch To Energy Saving Lightbulbs
Unplug Your Chargers – reduce your emissions
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Maidenhead, GB , 30 Sep 2005
We live in rented accommodation, so we’re limited in what we can do to the structure or major equipment. However, we’ve been focussing on doing really simple things like making sure the curtains are drawn to keep the heat in, switching off unneeded lights, and we tend to keep the heating at about 15 degrees. I think we’d absolutely boil if we turned it up as high as 21!
taunton, GB , 01 Oct 2005
I think for me, this Winter, i’m going to have to keep remembering to wear more clothes! The times in the past that I’ve wanted to bump the heating up, when actually i’ve only been wearing a couple of layers… not good! So, top tip:
WEAR LOTS OF CLOTHES WHEN IT’S COLD !!
and even jog on the spot now and then, to keep warm… anything but bump the heating up, and wasting energy!
Nottingham, GB , 13 Oct 2005
Done a lot of these already over the last couple of years and it has made a big difference to the bills though I still think they’re too high. Now I’m going to try keeping the thermostat a bit lower and wrapping myself in a blanket if I’m sitting still and feeling chilly! Guess I’ll turn it up a bit when we have guests though! Might seem a bit off to give them all blankets when they walk in the door! I need to redo the draft excluder things on the sash windows or maybe invest in some secondary glazing sheets. I also intend to train the rest of the family to TURN OFF THOSE LIGHTS AND THE TV when they leave the room!!
GB , 13 Oct 2005
I hate central heating and it makes me feel sniffy so i find wearing more clothes and using a blanket works for me. I do have blankets on the back of our sofas in the winter – for my less hardy friends (soocoo please note!) who always think my house is too cold
Chester, GB , 14 Oct 2005
My daughters and I do tend to get cold, but we all have fleece blankets on the backs of our chairs!!. We have recently moved back to our house after a flood, and tonight I am going round the rooms that don’t yet have curtains and putting them up, all lined of course!!
the foil thing I am also going to try
Dot
AF , 07 Nov 2005
Check out www.eaga.co.uk for grants for insulation, cavity wall, lightbulbs, tank jackets etc. Especially for those on low incomes.
Even if you are in rented accommodation you are still eligible – if you get your landlords permission.
AF , 07 Nov 2005
Check out www.eaga.co.uk for grants for insulation, cavity wall, lightbulbs, tank jackets etc. Especially for those on low incomes.
Even if you are in rented accommodation you are still eligible – if you get your landlords permission.
11 Nov 2005
In our previous house we put Warmcell insulation in our loft. It is made from recycled newsprint. Details of it from here: http://www.greenshop.co.uk. We put ours in ourselves – it was very easy and wasn’t expensive. We now sleep in our attic room, so that makes insulating it less easy!
30 Nov 2005
We’ve just blocked up a chimney (previously open to the sky, the rain came in) and blocked up the draught that came under the cellar door. Working on getting mastic put round two recently installed, and unfinished, windows. We’re into draught-proofing basics here, not finesse!! Want to explore using sheepswool insulation under the living room floor – major draught round ankles from stripped wooden floor. Having trouble with the cat-flap, it sticks open after she has come in. Oh, and I’ve just shortened the curtains in the living room so they don’t hang over the radiator. Nothing left on standby any more. Lightbulbs gradually being replaced with energy efficient ones.
Stroud, GB , 04 Feb 2006
Sadly (as far as this is concerned) the house we live in is not our, and i suspect the Diocesewould take a dim view of us doing very much along these line – and anyway they have already done most of them! I do keep turning down the thermostat surreptitiosly, only to have ceertain members of the family complain it is too cold….
28 Feb 2006
find it hard when my fingers go numb sitting at the computer, but if you keep moving it works. Have also found that doing the washing up is a great way to warm your hands up!
Darwen, GB , 06 Apr 2006
About to have a major go at this. Emptying the loft of all the clutter that has accumilated up there. When that is gone we are going to increase loft insulation to a depth of 10 inch. Awaiting a survey to see how much wall insulation will cost for our house. Its a modern semi-detached supposedly built using thermolite building blocks but I reckon that the insulation of these walls could be improved. Comfort will be improved a little money will be saved and hopefully it will help the enviroment.
Darwen, GB , 06 Apr 2006
I recently had a new condensing boiler fitted. If these are supposed to be more efficient how come it throws out a load of steam when its running? Surely there should be less vapour. Any one know why this should be the case?
Gloucester, GB , 15 Jun 2006
have just had cavity wall insulation – half paid for by a grant. have added more insulation to loft and bought a stack of energy eff bulbs (cheap in asda). bought an A rated fridge freezer last year and looking to replace boiler this year. need to work on turning thermostats down – i love being hot!
27 Jul 2006
For those with an open chimney have a look at www.chimney-balloon.co.uk. It’s basicalyl a big blow up bag with a valve that you shove up the chimney to stop the draughts. Only had ours a few months so can’t comment on it’s effectiveness just yet as it’s been too warm but it should help come the cold nights. Also, if anyone in your household is on benefuits such as incapacity or DLA you can get most insulation done for free. Getting our walls filled next week!
27 Jul 2006
I’ve bought an electricity meter that you plug into the wall and then plug appliances into. You can then see how much electricity they use of a period of time (and you can program the cost too). It’s quite scary! Found one on ebay for about 20 quid. Very handy for seeing what uses the elctricty. Also bought a fridge sava plug to reduce running costs of the fridge/freezer.
27 Jul 2006
I’ve bought an electricity meter that you plug into the wall and then plug appliances into. You can then see how much electricity they use of a period of time (and you can program the cost too). It’s quite scary! Found one on ebay for about 20 quid. Very handy for seeing what uses the elctricty. Also bought a fridge sava plug to reduce running costs of the fridge/freezer.
Godalming, GB , 01 Aug 2006
Our house already had cavity wall insulation when we moved in. This Spring we finished having all the windows double-glazed.
Our hot water tank has a very efficient jacket and we tend to keep the heating fairly low – it rarely goes above 18 degrees C and is more like 15 in the daytime.
Martock, GB , 31 Aug 2006
Not looking forward to adding another 8” of insulation to the loft to make it 12” – but it has to be done!
Darwen, GB , 17 Sep 2006
We have just had our cavity walls insulated. We got a cheap deal through our electricity supplier. It cost us £125 and it carries a 25 year guarantee. We have noticed the difference already. The real test will come when the cold weather comes. One of our bedrooms always got chilly in the night when the heating was off. Hopefully it will be warmer from now on.
Harrow, GB , 24 Jan 2007
We have just forked out a small fortune to replace our 23-year-old-at-least boiler with a condensing job. No way will we ever recoup the cost, but it’s got to be done. I looked into insulating our loft to a depth of 10 inches – I got all excited that the insulating material Which? made its best buy was both one of the cheapest and made out of recycled paper – but I worked out it would take 16 years to recoup the cost. If our country was run by people who had genuinely Got the Idea, the government would pay from the public purse for every loft to be properly insulated in the next 12 months. It would create loads of work for all the East Europeans who are supposed to be flooding into Britain, plus it would boost the market for recycled paper, and it would probably mean they could close down Drax power station. As long as it is incumbent on homeowners to pay for loft insulation, a lot of lofts are never going to be done, as it takes so many years to recoup the cost. We’ve got about four inches of insulation at present, and of all the houses in our street, ours is one of the few whose roof is still covered in snow…
17 May 2007
Well, after much umming and ahhing, we finally got around to insulating our back bedroom (coldest in the house) with insulated plaster board. This was a major thing for us… and expensive (insulated plaster board was £400 and £600 to pay the plasterer to fix the boards then plaster the walls…). Hopefully tho it should make the room warmer in winter and colder in the summer!
Taunton, GB , 30 May 2007
Taunton Deane Borough Council are offering reduced price wall and roof insulation. I’ve signed up and someone should be visiting shortly in order to ‘audit’ my home. Hurrah!
Newcastle upon Tyne, GB , 04 Jul 2007
I have had a go at puting reflectors behind my radiators. I made them out of cardboard and tin foil. Still have the downstairs to do but I need more cardboard! Thinking I may be cheeky and ask a neighbour who is extending if they have any! Going to have cavity wall done, clear the loft out and top the insulation this summer, a busy time for me when I am off school! Keep considering a new boiler but my plumber keeps urging me to keep me old on going for a bit longer. Try the foil thing the sticky pads you can get make it easy to stick them to the wall.
Martock, GB , 24 Mar 2008
Except where the junk goes, the loft now has 12” of insulation. So who thought of timberframe houses without cavity walls then?
Perth, GB , 05 May 2008
How do I tell whether my house (1930s bungalow) has cavity walls, and whether, if so, they’ve been insulated?
Also, we have two bedrooms in a loft conversion, which means there’s no space between the ceiling and the roof. Apart from anything else, that means that the temperature in these rooms can fluctuate wildly, which is uncomfortable as well as inefficient. Any tips on doing anything about this situation?