Spill the beans... on your extreme energy saving tricks

Bettie

My biggest moneysaver has been doing the washing in cold water with a once a month antibacterial wash to keep the pipes sweet.
I recharge all my batteries and phones at work.
No heating on yet. I stay in bed to keep warm and when it gets colder I have a portable heater to heat the one room.

lynsey85

A.Jones wrote: »

Get a job - then your employer can keep you warm during the day (or night if you do night shifts).

That depends on where you work. i stay at home with my kids now but when i was working last it was winter, i was about 6 months pregnant and working in a shop. the temperature was about 9 degrees, yet i still wasn't allowed to close the door - "people will think we're closed"

holmesgroove

I guess as the only thing that I do to save is to not use the immersion heater. I shower twice a day(which is electric) and I just boil a kettle to do one lot of dishes a day, in the evening after dinner. I've been doing this for a while now.

I live alone in a one bedroom lower flat. With Scottish Gas, my bills last year were as follows: Any month without 1 NSH on(end of March until yesterday), my highest bill was £26, and the months with 1 NSH heater on and the odd time for 1 Oil Filled Radiator on was no more than £47.

Oh, and obviously I have economy 7 in the flat. I have a few plug in timers. Anything I have which needs charged I plug into a gang line connected to the timer. Charge things at a fifth of the cost.

Katie-Kat-Kins

timbstoke wrote: »

. After I’ve cooked, I leave the oven door ajar to let the heat into the room.

I have tried doing this but it sets our smoke alarms off. I hate to waste the heat from the hob or oven once I have left the room by shutting the door behind me but in winter it seems to set of the smoke detector.

Yes the terribly bright builders thought the ideal place for a smoke detector would be outside the kitchen door....

It is soooo over sensitive that even though I have covered it in cling flim it still goes off when I open the kitchen door or if I cook with the door open. It isn't that the oven needs cleaning the electric hob and the toaster also manage to set it off on a cold day. I think it is the warm air moving that does it.

Any suggestions for temporarily disabling the thing? It is wired into the mains so I can't just take the battery out......

Oh and before I get a fire safety lecture I have another on the upstairs landing that is in full working order and is not tampered with. But this one is driving me potty! It must drive the neighbours nuts too as it goes of pretty much daily.

lynsey85

sitka40 wrote: »

I take plugs out of sockets as electricity is still drained even if the item is switched off (tiny amount I know, but over time it mounts up). Having said that when I lived in an old farmhouse we used to keep plugs in the sockets just to keep the draught out!! Any gaps in floorboards were filled with soggy newspaper (dries hard and can be painted if necessary) and then covered with rugs/carpet.:)

buy socket covers like for babyproofing if sockets are that much of an issue.

lynsey85

jwt13 wrote: »

Husband's tip ( he irons his own shirts - I got him when he was well trained !) In the colder weather when worn with a sweater you only need to iron shirt collars and front down to second button. Who is going to see the rest of it ?

also, for those that leave the bath water in the bath - the warm and slightly damp air will also help to drop creases out of clothes

t0rt0ise

Katie-Kat-Kins wrote: »

I have tried doing this but it sets our smoke alarms off. I hate to waste the heat from the hob or oven once I have left the room by shutting the door behind me but in winter it seems to set of the smoke detector.

Where do you think the heat goes if you don't open the oven door? It still goes into the room you just don't feel it as a rush of heat.

Katie-Kat-Kins

t0rt0ise wrote: »

Where do you think the heat goes if you don't open the oven door? It still goes into the room you just don't feel it as a rush of heat.

It stays in the kitchen, gradually leaking out, and whilst some will leak out into the rest of the house, some will also go out through the windows. It also tends to make the kitchen very hot while I am actually cooking. I would rather disperse this heat around the house while I am cooking so I don't have to walk out of a roasting hot kitchen and into a freezing lounge/dining room.

Seems pointless having a nice warm kitchen with the door shut while I'm in the next room with a blanket on my lap!

ETA: Just realised you said if you don't open the oven door not if you don't open the kitchen door!

In my case it doesn't matter whether the oven door is open or shut, it sets the smoke alarm off so I have to leave the kitchen door shut.

THE_S1MZ

songsinger wrote: »

We have used a gas kettle for years, have a gravity feed shower with no electrics and water straight off the gas heated system, and when I bought my AAA rated automatic washing machine, I had to trawl the net for a hot and cold feed machine, to be able to fill from main system rather than use expensive electricity to heat the wash. Hot fill only works at a stated 60 degrees, but it is possible to set it to fill for a supposed 60 wash, then switch down to 40 after five minutes, before it has got too hot.
How many people realise that electric Kwh cost around 3 times as much as gas Kwh?

What a lot of people don't realise is that..... The hot and cold fill w/machines are no more economical than just the cold fill machines. The water that enters the machine from the hot water supply pipe is usually cold right back to the origin of the supply.. ie: boiler or tank...by the time the total amount of water has entered the machine the hot hasn't made it all the way down ,round and into the machine yet.....all queue'd up and ready for action , but nowhere to go ! (Due to the small amount of water required these day's). So the element within the machine still has to warm the water to the chosen temperature.... so false economy it would appear.....save money and buy the cheaper cold fill machine...

Pincher

Had a thread on cold fill only or hot/cold fill thread recently, and I don't think it makes much difference costwise.

However, using hot water the boiler made earlier does mean you are not waiting for the heating element inside the machine. My machines are VERY close to the hot water cylinder, or instant hot water heater in another house. I find that my old hot/cold fill Bosch was doing a short wash in about 35 minutes, whereas the new cold fill only tends to need about 50 minutes, on the "SpeedPerfect" setting.

This is an issue when the house is fully occupied, and everyone suddenly decide it's laundry day.