Any energy saving tips?

QrizB

paulhgc said:

cheaperme said:

Also, thermal underwear is really good. One year I bought some from Aldi, and I sometimes wear it at night in bed during the winter - really good for keeping warm.

Terrible for ya sex life tho 

Oh, I dunno. Have you ever tried his 'n' hers trapdoor longjohns? (Or his 'n' his, or hers 'n' hers, if you roll that way.)

LippyDoodle

QrizB said:

paulhgc said:

cheaperme said:

Also, thermal underwear is really good. One year I bought some from Aldi, and I sometimes wear it at night in bed during the winter - really good for keeping warm.

Terrible for ya sex life tho 

Oh, I dunno. Have you ever tried his 'n' hers trapdoor longjohns? (Or his 'n' his, or hers 'n' hers, if you roll that way.)

I just realised you even put a link for people to check them out  

Petriix

Reduce the use of the high powered items first rather than chasing the negligible gains from lower powered items. By way of example it uses about 1kWh to leave my TV on standby for a whole month whereas it takes just 6 minutes in a 10kW electric shower to use the same amount of energy.

Start by turning your heating down as low as you can tolerate and keep warm in other ways (but don't rely on resistive electric heaters, wrap up warmer and heat only the spaces you need).

Reduce wasted heat by keeping doors and windows closed. Ventilate in the warmest part of the day only.

Reduce your time in the shower. Let the water in the bath cool before pulling the plug. 

Only run the washing machine and dishwasher when full and choose the lowest energy cycles (not necessarily the shortest).

Air dry washing and minimise use of the tumble dryer, but don't waste heat from your house by leaving windows wide open.

Use gas over electricity for heating stuff (particularly water). Avoid heating more stuff than you need.

Make sure all your lights are LED. If you need to replace any appliance then choose the most efficient one.

Turn things off when not needed, focusing on the highest power items first.

[Deleted User]

We had a lot of draughts through degraded seals in the double glazing. I used to use insulating tape on the gaps in the window joins in the winter till I discovered that I could change the seals and not the double glazing on my particularly double glazing fit. Old flipper seals were worn and flat and not forming any seal at all when you closed the window. Changed for a bubble seal and worked a charm of stopping that heat loss and draughts Even with taped up joins our curtains used to blow about in the winter, now it is sorted.

There are two seals to change, inner (on the frame) and outer (on the opening window), at least on mine.There are places that you can buy this on line and sample packs to help identify what seal you need (there are many different types). 

We put another layer of insulation in the attic. House was to 1995 (I think) code, now the latest recommended went on top of the existing thin layer.

Extractor hood didn't have  a backdraught preventer and neither did the other extractor fans. They are easily obtained but required some work to fit. Any extractor fans to the outside, check they have those.

Electric wise, if there is a plug and something plugged in then it will use electric if the socket is on. Don't need it, turn it off at the socket.

Depending on how deep your pockets are, buy the efficient not the cheapest. Check Which reviews if available to you for the info. e.g. our A++ rated heat pump condenser tumble has probably broken even a year ago after 5 years use but it cost a tad more than the standard C rated. Of course you need it to work for a long time. Caveat here is we needed one.

Sea_Shell

Reducing energy use is of course good, but if it's hard £££s that are the issue, then I'd suggest that most of us have easier "low hanging fruit" amongst our outgoings that would save more £s than turning off a light or two.

FreeBear

half_empty said: We had a lot of draughts through degraded seals in the double glazing.

We put another layer of insulation in the attic. House was to 1995 (I think) code, now the latest recommended went on top of the existing thin layer.

Plugging the draughts is usually one of the cheapest energy saving measures, and for the most part, an easy DIY job. Aside from the doors & windows, the other area to look at is around the base of the walls - If you have a suspended timber ground floor, there is often a gap between the floorboards & wall. A thin bead of expanding foam or draught excluder wedged in the gap fixes that.

Loft insulation is cheap, so there isn't really any excuse for putting an extra layer down. Even although the current recommended thickness is 270mm, it doesn't hurt to go thicker - Bu the time I've finished thermal upgrades here, I'll have 300mm, if not more.

C48

I'm a pensioner living alone in a 2-storey house.  When I was having my hall decorated the painter removed my central heating controller from the wall near the back door and I put it on the kitchen table.  After a day or two I realised that the kitchen which had always been chilly was much more cosy, but it was significantly warmer than necessary upstairs.  I decided to try taking the heating controller with me when I move around the house, normally set at 20 degrees but turned down lower during the night.  When I'm in the kitchen or living room I close the doors to keep the heat in, and when I go upstairs to bed or to use the computer I open them.  It's too early to know what effect this is having on my bills but the heating switches on much less frequently now, so I'm hopeful. 

I also have a hypothermia thermometer so that I can check whether the room I'm in is warm enough.  They're available online from many sellers including amazon and ebay. 

EssexHebridean

If you are on Economy 7 electricity then really learn about it - know your cheap times, and make use of them. Appliances can be run on timeswitches or using internal delay settings (but if running particularly tumble dryers overnight you MUST have decent smoke alarms, and clean the TD filters regularly too). 
E7 specific:
- modern storage heaters are a LOT more efficient than the older ones - and the controllability means you can use the heat they store far more effectively. 
- Really learn how your storage heaters work - and then get them set up properly for your needs.
- Keep an eye on the weather forecast for several days ahead and adjust heaters accordingly.
- Timings differ from area to area - at the moment we are 00.10 > 07.10 but yours might be different - if you still have a non-smart meter then you'll be able to hear a "click" as it switches over. I assume that smart meters will tell you via the digital display unit if you have one. otherwise your provider should be able to tell you.
-  a well insulated immersion heater can hold it's heat really well for longer than you'd expect - so don't assume it's cheaper to turn it off if you're away for a couple of nights, it may use more to reheat the fully cold tank on return than just to allow it to "tick over" - if nothing has been taken out of it ours is only pennies to "top up" the heat.
- If you have an immersion that heats overnight and your usual "get up" time in the morning is after the cheap electric finishes then consider having a bath before bed rather than a shower in the morning - electric showers have a preferred diet of £5 notes with pound coin sprinkles in my experience.
- a bathroom can be warmed up amazingly just by a small heated towel rail radiator - and those cost buttons to run, even more so if you use the cheap electric.

Not E7 specific, lining curtains and remembering to close curtains/blinds when it gets dark is one of the best things we've done. If you live in a building with a communal front door that people tend to leave hooked open, it's worth a trip out to it before bed to push it closed too. (Guess how I know that one!) Also agree with C48 above about closing doors between rooms - it's simple but our grandparents used to tell us to "Put t'wood in't hole" for a reason! 

LippyDoodle

C48 said:

I'm a pensioner living alone in a 2-storey house.  When I was having my hall decorated the painter removed my central heating controller from the wall near the back door and I put it on the kitchen table.  After a day or two I realised that the kitchen which had always been chilly was much more cosy, but it was significantly warmer than necessary upstairs.  I decided to try taking the heating controller with me when I move around the house, normally set at 20 degrees but turned down lower during the night.  When I'm in the kitchen or living room I close the doors to keep the heat in, and when I go upstairs to bed or to use the computer I open them.  It's too early to know what effect this is having on my bills but the heating switches on much less frequently now, so I'm hopeful. 

I also have a hypothermia thermometer so that I can check whether the room I'm in is warm enough.  They're available online from many sellers including amazon and ebay. 

I'm a little confused with you being able to carry your heating controller around with you. Mines on the wall and connected to wires. I'm assuming that there are different types? 

EssexHebridean

There are - the one in the office I work in is a wireless one and we can indeed move it around the office.