Winterproof your energy bills
This weekend’s glorious weather makes it hard to believe that autumn is just around the corner and in a few weeks we will see the temperatures dip. While it may be difficult to think of the colder weather right now, it is the perfect time to take steps if you want to keep your home warm and at a comfortable temperature throughout the colder months, while also ensuring your bills don’t become unnecessarily expensive.
So what can you do to keep your home warm and your bills low this winter?
1. Upgrade your boiler – Your boiler accounts for over half of your annual energy use, so installing an efficient boiler could make a huge difference to how warm your home feels and keeping your energy bills low.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, replacing an old gas boiler with no controls with an A-rated high efficiency condensing boiler and full set of heating controls will significantly cut your home’s carbon dioxide emissions, and could save you as much as £340 a year.
2. Pipes – Pipe insulation consists of a foam tube that covers the exposed pipes between your hot water cylinder and boiler, reducing the amount of heat lost and, therefore, keeping your water hotter for longer. Pipe insulation will save around £10 a year on your energy bills.
3. Radiator reflector panels – Fix these behind your radiators to reflect heat from the radiator back into the room, instead of letting the heat out through an external wall. They can produce the most benefit when installed on uninsulated walls, where they could save you around £15 a year.
4. Draught excluders – DIY draught proofing of windows, doors and random holes in the home can be a great way at stopping heat leaving the home. Homeowners can buy draught proofing products in DIY stores saving up to £35 a year.
5. Wall insulation – Wall insulation will provide the greatest savings and warmest homes. If a home was built after 1920, the chances are that its external walls are made of two layers of brick with a gap or cavity between them. Cavity wall insulation fills that gap, keeping the warmth in to save energy. The average installation cost for cavity wall insulation is between £450 and £500 and can save up to £160 a year for a typical semi-detached home. This means that the measure could pay for itself in less than four years.
