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Energy Efficiency
Part of our promise to you is to do all we can to help you save energy and money. We may not be able to do much to solve the problems of global warming, but we can all do our bit to save energy in our homes. There are lots of simple changes we can make to our everyday habits which will really help reduce our energy usage at home.
Top Energy Saving Tips
Heating your home
Try nudging down your heat by a degree or two.
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Our Top Tips
- Stay warm, cut costs. Turning down your thermostat by just one degree will save you around £75 per year.
- Your parents were right. Wearing more jumpers, socks and slippers around the house and putting an extra blanket on the bed means you won't be tempted to turn the heating up.
- Take Control. By using the timers on your boiler, you can select which time you want the heating to come on and turn off. Be sure to turn the radiators off in the rooms you’re not using, and keep all internal doors shut to retain the heat.
- Mind the gap. Check whether heat could be leaving your home through gaps. Thick curtains, draught excluders, even a piece of putty in a small gap around a window will help keep the heat in. Making these small changes can save you up to £35 a year.
- Keep it clear. Make sure your radiators aren’t blocked by any furniture, keeping a clear space will ensure the heat can efficiently spread around the room, making your heating system work more effectively.
- Radiator Reflectors. You can lose heat if a radiator is on an external wall, especially if it isn't insulated. Reflector panels help to reflect that heat back into the room. You can buy them from hardware shops, fit them yourself and you don’t need to remove the radiator. Simple.
- How to save on heating your water. Using a gas oil or LPG central heating system? It will always be cheaper to set the timer so the hot water only comes on when you need it. However, if you’re using an electrical immersion heater and have an Economy 7 or 10 tariff, it’s cheaper to heat your water during the night. Make sure your tank is well insulated to prevent it cooling during the day!
Washing and laundry
Do the week's laundry in one go and put a full load into the machine
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Our Top Tips
- Shrink your bills, not your clothes. 90% of a washing machine's energy costs are spent on heating the water, so if you wash your clothes at 30-40°C you're saving significant amounts of money.
- Hang up your laundry. Tumble dryers can cost between £70 - £100 a year depending on the size of your household. To avoid using it in the winter, simply hang your washing on a clothes horse and pop it near a radiator to make the most of your central heating.
- Wash at 30. Today’s washing detergents are designed to work just as well at 30 degrees as they at 40 degrees, so try to avoid washing laundry on a higher temperature. Wait until you have a full load too – that saves on water as well as energy. You can save up to £52 a year by making this small change! Always use the economy setting to save further (if you have one).
- Be smart about washing up. Try to only use one bowl of water when washing up, and avoid rinsing plates as it wastes clean water. If you use a dishwasher, fill it completely before you put it on. This can save you up to £30 a year.
- Be an Eco Warrior. Use eco balls in your tumble dryer. These create gaps between your clothes, allowing the heat to move freely around and dry your clothes more quickly.
Hot water
Keep your showers to about 10 minutes
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Our Top Tips
- Turn the pressure down. If you have a power shower. A high-pressure power shower is a luxury, but you'd be surprised how much water they use - sometimes even more than a bath.
- Cut it down. Spending one minute less in the shower each day will save around £10 on your energy spend each year, per person.
- Keep it cool. Don't heat your water to a scalding temperature. For most people, 60°C/140°F is the most comfortable temperature.
- Maintain your Boiler. Fitting your hot water tank with a thermostat could save you up to £30 a year and reduce your carbon footprint by 130kg. Fitting an insulation jacket could reduce your energy spend by £40and your carbon footprint by 170kg. Replace your boiler if it’s over 15 years old, you could save up to £240 a year if you install a new condensing boiler and controls.
- Use your head. Purchasing an energy efficient shower head can save you £75 a year on energy costs.
Electricity
Always turn things off when you leave a room
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Our Top Tips
- Switch it off and save. Avoid standby. Leaving appliances on standby can use as much as 75% of the energy they use when they're fully switched on, and could cost you up to and extra £80 per year.
- Light it up & lower the cost. Changing your old-fashioned incandescent lighting to more energy-efficient options can save on your overall energy bill. Installing five low energy light bulbs will cost about £15 and could save you as much as £32 a year.
- Get the kids involved. Play energy-saving games using your In-Home Display & energy balances with your kids to teach them the importance of switching off to save energy and money.
- Buy smart. An electric oven with the new A+ efficiency rating will use around 40% less energy than a B-rated oven. Don’t sweat it. Using your hairdryer on the cool setting (especially in summer) can reduce your energy spend by £10 a year, plus it’s less damaging for your hair.
- Turn the light out. Switch the lighting off once you leave a room, it will save you up to £12 a year
In the kitchen
Only boil as much water as you need
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Our Top Tips
- Keep up with your kettle. Boiling an average 3kWh kettle for 10 minutes per day will cost around £27 per year. If you only boil as much water as you need, you will significantly reduce these costs.
- Batch cook. If you're going to use the oven, cook a few meals at a time to get the most out of having your oven on and hot. You can freeze un-used batches and re-heat them for quick and easy future meals.
- Heat your home with cooking. Leave the oven door open after cooking to let the heat warm your kitchen. The oven might give off enough heat for you to adjust your thermostat, a far more efficient use of that stored heat than throwing it out of your home with an extractor fan.
- Make things easy for your fridge & freezer. Keeping them full means they don't have to work as hard and therefore they use less energy. Empty space in your fridge or freezer wastes not only space but energy too. An A+++ fridge freezer will save around £190 in energy costs over its 10-year lifetime compared to an A+ model
- Switch it up. Cooking on an electric hob for just thirty minutes a day costs £90 a year. Using an electric oven for thirty minutes a day will set you back £82 a year. For a cheaper alternative, get yourself a microwave – when used for 10 minutes a day, this will only cost you just £3 per year.
Additional Support
If you can’t get back on supply please call 03452 072 000 – if you need help outside of our normal working hours please call 0345 2068 999.
03 numbers are UK wide numbers that are charged in the same way as 01 and 02 numbers.