10 Energy Saving Tips For Your Home
Are you looking for ways to make your home more energy efficient, reduce environmental harm, and save money? Well look no further – Here are our top 10 tips on how you can save energy in your home:
Limit your electricity usage
Try to limit the amount of electricity you use in an average day. Some simple changes you can make include – turning your computer and electrics off at the wall when you’re not using them, dim the brightness on your mobile phone and turn off 3G/4G/Bluetooth to save electricity and money on charging. You could also try reading a book instead of watching television. This requires no electricity, plus research has found that reading is actually far more relaxing than watching television.
Manage home temperatures
Modern technology provides plenty of energy saving options, such as installing a programmable thermostat that manages your indoor temperature. You can even purchase smart thermostats that you can control from outside your home. Ensure that you turn your heating right down when there’s no one at home to benefit from it. Turning down the temperature on your thermostat is also a great way to reduce utility bills and wasted energy. As a general rule, you will save about £50 per year for every degree you turn your thermostat down.
Install proper insulation
Installing proper insulation allows better temperature control and can save you up to 20% on your energy bills. It’s also important to try and install insulation in the attic, to help prevent heat from escaping up through the top of your home.
Upgrade appliances
Install and use ENERGY Star labeled appliances including freezers, washing machines, dryers, refrigerators and dishwashers. This ensures that your appliances meet energy efficiency requirements, which will save you energy and money in the long run.
Turn off lights
Turn off your lights when you’re not in – It might seem simple, but lots of people forget to do this and lighting accounts for about 12% of a typical residential utility bill. You could even invest in motion detector lights. This would ensure that lights are never left on if no one is there to benefit from them.
Replace light bulbs
Energy efficient light bulbs, such as LEDs, are far more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs because they use less energy. Replacing your lighting with low energy LED lights, will use around 90% less energy and also last around 10-20 times longer.
Seal air leaks
Sealing gaps, cracks and leaks, and adding insulation can save up to 10% on home heating costs. Ensure that you also draft proof your front door and letterbox, to help prevent cold air coming into your home during the winter months.
Reduce your water usage
Hot water contributes up to 17% of your household energy usage, meaning that reducing water usage can make a massive difference to your overall energy costs. Try to take shorter showers, and always choose a shower over a bath. You can also install a low flow shower head to further reduce your water costs. Using a dishwasher will also reduce your water costs as they tend to use far less water than washing by hand. Make sure that you put your dishwasher on ECO mode to help minimise the energy used in the washing process. You should also try to wash all dirty dishes at the same time, ideally just once per day, in order to reduce water wastage.
Install double glazing
Installing double glazing is not cheap, but it will improve the energy efficiency of your home and should save you a bit on your energy bills every year. Additionally, double glazing will improve the comfort of your home by preventing cold air and drafts, increasing your home security, and reducing outside noise.
Avoid using a dryer
Try to avoid using dryers and hang clothes outside whenever you can. Dryers have large motors and heaters, which means they use lots of energy and are expensive to run. Drying your clothes outside can be just as efficient, is not harmful to the environment, and saves you energy costs. If you have to use a dryer, then make sure you clean the lint filter after every couple of uses. This will allow your machine to run more efficiently, helping to save electricity.
Final Thought
As you can see, there are plenty of simple things that you can do to make your home more energy efficient. Improving your homes energy efficiency has a number of great benefits including – saving you money, making your home more comfortable, improving the resale value, and reducing environmental harm. We suggest getting a fresh EPC assessment of your home to find out which energy saving methods you would benefit from the most.
