Cut down your energy bills

(11/07/2010)

In these troubled times any money that is being unnecessarily spent is money that needs to be saved. There are hundreds of ways of trying to cut down your energy bills ranging from seriously drastic measures to the more mundane.

A good place to start is by cutting back on the washing. If you can manage not to wash your clothes on a setting above 40C then you are away. A wash at 60C uses 30% more energy as 90% of the energy used by a washing machine is used in heating the water. Household appliances that give off heat such as tumble dryers, use lots of electricity. Whenever you can hand your clothes outside to dry. Turning off the tumble-dryer is a 100% energy saving solution.

Even better, once your clothes are finally dry wear more of them. It means you can turn the heating down. Lowering your thermostat by just 1.5C can save up to 10% on heating bills and reduce the greenhouse gases your household produces by up to a tonne. Also don't forget to regularly bleed your radiators to get rid of inefficient air bubbles.

Possibly the best way to save energy however is to get a better boiler. Boilers can appalling when it comes to energy efficiency, so by simply having it repaired by someone who knows what they are doing - British Gas are often the best people to do that in this case - or replaced with a more efficient model you could end up saving hundreds of pounds on your monthly bills. In fact British Gas are embracing energy efficiency to the extent that they’ve created an ‘Energy Savers Store’ on their website where you can read up on all things energy efficiency related.

Related categories:  Boilers - Domestic   Energy Conservation   Heating controls   Radiators: panel, convector, towel rails   Residential applications