My utility bills are a pain. Can anyone recommend some easy ways to insulate my home and/or improve its energy efficiency. Someone mentioned tin foil behind the radiators to reflect heat back into the house. Would this work?
Ways to reduce utility bills and make home energy efficient
- Thread starter badhairday
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in order of cheapness and fast payback:
close internal doors when the heating is on (cost: nil)
fix the draughts including open chimneys, gappy letterbox and ill-fitting doors (cost: a few pounds)
insulate your hot water cylinder (if you have one and not already done) and the pipes around it (cost: £12 plus £5 ish for the pipes)
verify that your central heating has a working timer and room stat, and that your radiators (except the one in the room with the room stat) have thermostatic radiator valves. Adjust and use them. (cost: maybe nil, maybe a few hundred pounds)
top up your loft insulation to at least 6 inches (150mm). the current standard is 10 inches (250mm) but you get diminishing returns on the extra thickness (cost: maybe a couple of hundred)
have your cavity walls (if you have them) insulated (cost: a few hundred pounds)
Payback on a new boiler is about nil (if you invested the money the interest would be about the same as the fuel savings, except if your old boiler needs replacing. If you take out a loan the cost is much more than the savings)
Payback on installing double glazing or a plastic door is less than nil (it costs more than it saves, unless your old windows have fallen out or rotted away and you need new ones)
I recommend you fill in this or something similar:
http://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report.html
close internal doors when the heating is on (cost: nil)
fix the draughts including open chimneys, gappy letterbox and ill-fitting doors (cost: a few pounds)
insulate your hot water cylinder (if you have one and not already done) and the pipes around it (cost: £12 plus £5 ish for the pipes)
verify that your central heating has a working timer and room stat, and that your radiators (except the one in the room with the room stat) have thermostatic radiator valves. Adjust and use them. (cost: maybe nil, maybe a few hundred pounds)
top up your loft insulation to at least 6 inches (150mm). the current standard is 10 inches (250mm) but you get diminishing returns on the extra thickness (cost: maybe a couple of hundred)
have your cavity walls (if you have them) insulated (cost: a few hundred pounds)
Payback on a new boiler is about nil (if you invested the money the interest would be about the same as the fuel savings, except if your old boiler needs replacing. If you take out a loan the cost is much more than the savings)
Payback on installing double glazing or a plastic door is less than nil (it costs more than it saves, unless your old windows have fallen out or rotted away and you need new ones)
I recommend you fill in this or something similar:
http://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report.html
In addition:
reduce heating thermostat settings, and get the family to wear more clothing indoors if they complain that they're cold
look for ways to economise on high-consumption appliances; for example, dry clothes outside when the sun's shining, not in the tumble drier
check the lighting load and change to lower consumption fittings where it makes sense to do so; encourage people not to leave lights on when they're not needed
get used to being seen as a grumpy old man.
As energy costs rise (40 per cent this coming winter, or maybe they're trying to frighten us) the cost benefit equation of spending capital to save on utility bills will change.
reduce heating thermostat settings, and get the family to wear more clothing indoors if they complain that they're cold
look for ways to economise on high-consumption appliances; for example, dry clothes outside when the sun's shining, not in the tumble drier
check the lighting load and change to lower consumption fittings where it makes sense to do so; encourage people not to leave lights on when they're not needed
get used to being seen as a grumpy old man.
As energy costs rise (40 per cent this coming winter, or maybe they're trying to frighten us) the cost benefit equation of spending capital to save on utility bills will change.
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Sign up at www.quidco.com - a cashback site. Then swap to the various utility companies and earn yourself between £50 and £70 when you change - and then keep swapping
xerxes said:
Redoubled in No Trumps!
We have gas central heating so our electric bill shouldn't be too big - except for the infernal tumbler and somebody's habit of whopping the timer up to 90 minutes regardless of what's in there!
Next time you need a new tumbler get a condensing one. Make sure it's the kind that uses the incoming cool air to condense water out of the exhaust. That way you recover the latent heat of vapourization. Also look for one that senses humidity and switches off automatically when the stuff is dry.
But, before you even look at tumblers, get an overhead clothes dryer. It's a simple device consisting of four wooden rails slotted into a pair of metal end brackets and hoisted up with rope and pulleys. Your mother probably had one.
Not much goes straight from the washer to the tumbler in our house. It spends a day on the rails first and gets finished off in the tumbler next day. 
Dont fit PIR room detectors. Theres one tip! I say this because we are having a refit at work and they are fitting new lights and "energy saving" devices. Occupancy detectors in the toilets. Why? The spark who fitted them whacked the timer up to about 20 minutes! So 20 mins after you've had your no.2, the light goes off! Uses more energy than before!
I say this because we are having a refit at work and they are fitting new lights and "energy saving" devices. Occupancy detectors in the toilets. Why? The spark who fitted them whacked the timer up to about 20 minutes! So 20 mins after you've had your no.2, the light goes off! Uses more energy than before!
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we are , well my other half, she gets very cold, and we always had the heating on high- she now has a few really warm jumpers and so wearing jumpers has made a huge difference to the heating - gas
Only heating water we need in kettle
Turned off ALL standby stuff - except the PVR
Turning lights off
All LED now
the letterbox is covered , since we moved in, also walls insulated , cylinder in loft and pipes all insulated as is the loft
All new windows
Log burner will be used more and we have a lot of firewood from trees cut down a couple of years ago
Now our gas is going up by 5X and electric by 3X... so we are getting prepared for the increase, and a nightmare winter - as on a low fixed , no increase company pension
We are in a bungalow - and no radiator controls, but the flow is all balanced , and we make use of doors open/closed to balance the heat across the ground floor
We also happened today - to review all our grocery shopping , we used to use Lidl, and then during lockdown and vulnerable - we had sainsbury delivery , which added 50% to food costs, we have slowly gone back to Aldi / lidl and today reviewed all our food shopping pre-covid and this week , so we are now making changes to that and will probably stop the sainsbury delivery - even though it costs us petrol (£4) to go and back - and time - but the savings are around £50 a week
i'm sure more things to think about - as the costs are now too high !!!!!
managed to get house Insurance , under last years cost for same cover , but had increased by 33% ...
today car insurance renewal - and that had gone up by 20% !!!! - but that was due to a fault accident , so talking to the company managed to get a good price - with increase mileage as we are travelling more as we come out of covid (but not as much as pre-covid due to the petrol costs!!!!!)
Next will be the broadband (goes up by inflation , so should get that down , probably need to change ) & phone & mobile contracts ( but they are cheap )
I'm retired , so my kids in full time high pressure jobs - would not have the time to look around - its very time consuming ........
BUT at least we can Heat and EAT , unlike some of the people we have heard are really in trouble now
Only heating water we need in kettle
Turned off ALL standby stuff - except the PVR
Turning lights off
All LED now
the letterbox is covered , since we moved in, also walls insulated , cylinder in loft and pipes all insulated as is the loft
All new windows
Log burner will be used more and we have a lot of firewood from trees cut down a couple of years ago
Now our gas is going up by 5X and electric by 3X... so we are getting prepared for the increase, and a nightmare winter - as on a low fixed , no increase company pension
We are in a bungalow - and no radiator controls, but the flow is all balanced , and we make use of doors open/closed to balance the heat across the ground floor
We also happened today - to review all our grocery shopping , we used to use Lidl, and then during lockdown and vulnerable - we had sainsbury delivery , which added 50% to food costs, we have slowly gone back to Aldi / lidl and today reviewed all our food shopping pre-covid and this week , so we are now making changes to that and will probably stop the sainsbury delivery - even though it costs us petrol (£4) to go and back - and time - but the savings are around £50 a week
i'm sure more things to think about - as the costs are now too high !!!!!
managed to get house Insurance , under last years cost for same cover , but had increased by 33% ...
today car insurance renewal - and that had gone up by 20% !!!! - but that was due to a fault accident , so talking to the company managed to get a good price - with increase mileage as we are travelling more as we come out of covid (but not as much as pre-covid due to the petrol costs!!!!!)
Next will be the broadband (goes up by inflation , so should get that down , probably need to change ) & phone & mobile contracts ( but they are cheap )
I'm retired , so my kids in full time high pressure jobs - would not have the time to look around - its very time consuming ........
BUT at least we can Heat and EAT , unlike some of the people we have heard are really in trouble now
But, before you even look at tumblers, get an overhead clothes dryer. It's a simple device consisting of four wooden rails slotted into a pair of metal end brackets and hoisted up with rope and pulleys. Your mother probably had one.
My mother had one of those, fine in a house with plenty of air flow from drafts, but in modern homes which are better sealed, the moisture has to go somewhere and often that is to cause mould on cooler walls. When I have to dry indoors, I use a series of stainless steel lines in my utility room, which is also fitted with a fan, and a plumbed in dehumidifier. The fan moves the dry air, the dehumidifier removes the moisture and it dries most things overnight. It costs much less than using the dryer. Just hanging things up, without these, it could take days, and cause damp to damage the painted walls.
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See also https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/electric-lightbulb-economy.599454/
Insulate internal walls, under floors and stack up more in the loft if it is below 12 inches
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See also https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/electric-lightbulb-economy.599454/
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See also https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/electric-lightbulb-economy.599454/
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