How to save energy at home

Save money and reduce carbon emissions with these winter energy-saving tips.

Stay warmer for longer

Close your curtains before it gets dark – you’ll keep more of the heat in your home.
Fit thermal curtains and blinds to help keep heat inside the room, rather than letting it escape through windows.
Insulate your loft – about a quarter of your heat is lost through it. If you can put down about 270mm of insulation (costing about £300), you could save about £135 a year on heating, and reduce carbon emissions too. You can do this yourself – there are quite a few YouTube videos showing you how.
Put reflective foil or panels behind your radiators.
If you have central heating, try setting the thermostat a little lower than usual – various experts have suggested you can save about £100 a year for every degree you turn it down below 22°.
Block up unwanted gaps in your home that let cold air in and warm air out by putting in draft excluder material around windows, doors, chimneys, floorboards and skirting boards, and loft hatches. For chimneys, you can get a removable wool pad for about £20 from Chimney Sheep.
Gaps between floorboards let a lot of your heat out, but can be sealed cheaply with fillers, sawdust and resin, or with proprietary products like StopGap.
Gaps in sash windows can be sealed with removable, flexible seals, for about £1.40 a metre.
Install insulating window film (or even use cling film) to reduce heat loss through windows by about 30%.
Check your radiators – if the top of the radiator is cold whilst lower down is warm, the radiator needs bleeding.

Use LED bulbs rather than the old traditional ones – they’re at least 75% more energy efficient.
Air dry, don’t tumble dry.
Don’t fill the kettle with more water than you need.

Put an insulation jacket on your hot water tank – this costs about £20 and can save you £70 a year.
Insulate your hot water pipes using foam insulation tubes.
Insulate your hot water pipes using foam insulation tubes (about £15 for an average tank).
Have shorter showers or install a water-efficient shower head.
Don’t do half loads when washing your clothes – do fewer (fuller) full loads instead.
Use the ‘eco’ setting on your washing machine and boiler.

If you’re renting and live in an energy-inefficient property, your landlord is liable to make changes to bring it up to at least an Energy Performance Certificate ‘E’ rating.

Choose energy-efficient appliances when your old ones are ready to be replaced (and recycle the old appliance – many suppliers will take the old one away for you and there are appliance recycling centres too).

Change your old traditional light bulbs to LED ones, which can cost about £150 or so. This could save you about £65 on your bill every year.

Cavity wall insulation – if you live in an older property that isn’t insulated, about 30% of your heat will be lost through the walls. Payback would be about two and a half years (based on old electricity bills; it’ll be faster now).

Solar panels – the payback and cost savings will vary a lot, depending on whether you’re at home much of the day (and so using a lot of the electricity they generate), and on your energy supplier’s rate for selling electricity to the national grid. Typically, it’ll take about ten years to recoup your investment, though rising electricity prices may make this quicker.

For more ideas, see Money Saving Expert, Energy Saving Trust and the energy companies like Good Energy.