Energy Saving Tips

[PuzzledObserver]

Gas and electricity prices are soaring. If you’re on a fixed tariff you can put the pain off for a while longer, but sooner or later, it is coming. So it makes sense to do everything you can to cut consumption now.

Some energy saving measures cost a lot of money to implement, but there are others which are cheap or free. My favourite recent discovery - reducing the flow temperature on your boiler.

I discovered mine was set at 78 degrees. I’ve turned it down to 55. The house is still comfortable. The boiler may be firing for slightly longer each day, but we are using less gas. It’s difficult to be precise, cos it obviously varies a lot from day to day. But in the cold snap in early December we were typically using 80 kWh of gas per day, and the last few days it has been more like 65-70, and I think the temperature has been lower the last few days than early December.

Here’s an article all about it, hope it helps someone.

www.theheatinghub.co.uk/articles/turn-down-the-boiler-flow-temperature.

Feel free to add your own energy saving tips.

Door brushes on your letterbox (if you have a front door straight from the outside, no porch)

Curtain across the doors to the outside

Close your curtains once it goes dark

Use heavy, lined curtains

Tuck the bottom of your curtain behind your radiator if the curtain is under the window

Close doors behind you automatically as you move about the house - don't be heating halls, stairways and landings all the time when no-one is sitting there

Stating the obvious, but think about what you are wearing..... wear socks...don't have big gaps (ie trainer socks then a gap)... wear cloths that tuck in to each other...... wear layers - add a vest or wear tights under your trousers.... wear a jumper

If you are opening the windows to air a room for a while, turn the radiator off in that room so you aren't trying to heat the sky

Use thermostats on your radiators so rooms that don't need to be so warm, aren't

Only boil the water you need in your kettle

Ovens are really expensive to run - think about how you use it, or utilise a slow cooker / microwave when you can

I had no idea about this PuzzledObserver. I checked ours after I read your post last night and we were running at 80c too. I knocked it down to 60c but it took an awfully long time for the house to warm up this morning (tbf it is only 1c outside right now and was in the minuses last night).

Theoretically, reducing the flow makes a lot of sense for us because there is always someone in the house, so it's not like it ever needs to heat it up quickly from an uncomfortably cold temperature - apart from the morning.

Perhaps if I start the thermostat so it kicks in earlier on the morning or increase the lower kick in range overnight but that seems a little counter intuitive to saving energy?

It'll take some tinkering, I think. It has been Baltic here over the last few days, it seems like an unfair test.

Just had the bill for our gas tank (rural so no mains gas). It is astronomical! Our house is quite cold generally and I don’t think we use the heating excessively.
Feeling quite stressed about it all, we are going to have to cut down on something in order to pay for the heating. 😢
Interested to hear thoughts about energy saving. We don’t seem to have temperature reading on the boiler,so don’t think I can do that one.

Our energy bill has actually reduced as we are now heating the house when I am WFH by using the wood burner (yes I know they are hated on MN) as we still have logs purchased from several years ago. Purchased a couple of stove fans which cost nothing to run but they direct heat out of the room so it heats up other parts of the house.

I don't have lights on and typically only run normal household appliances so my tips would be to look at what you leave on and does it need to be on.

@FourTeaFallOut

Perhaps if I start the thermostat so it kicks in earlier on the morning or increase the lower kick in range overnight but that seems a little counter intuitive to saving energy?

Yes, that is what you need to do - the room will heat up more slowly because the temperature differential between the room and the radiator is lower. But overall it should save gas because it enables your boiler to run more efficiently. That’s assuming you have a modern condensing boiler - the article covers that, I think.

Also you may need to experiment a bit, because the size of your radiators and how well insulated your house is will affect things too. Maybe you need to put yours back to 65 - it’s a bit of trial and error.

If you have a smart meter, you can see how much gas you are using each day.

I have also added a draught excluder strip on the front door (you could actually feel the draught) and am trying to get in the habit of closing curtains at dusk.

Our heating is set to be on for much of the day as we are retired. I’m trying to remember to turn the upstairs heating off when we go out for the day. The downstairs is underfloor heating and is really efficient, but slow to react. So the advice is to leave that on.

We get a lot of solar gain from picture windows in our lounge and main bedroom, which are south facing. Even when it was -1 outside, our lounge only wanted the heat on for about 3 hours to maintain it above the target temperature of 18.5

You are clearly made of tougher stuff Our target is 19.5c but inevitably someone will boost it on the weekend to 20.5c.

We definitely meet all the requirements for giving this a whirl and I've got hive and a smart meter so, between the two, I should be able to find the sweet spot.

I'm not sure I have many tips that haven't been covered. TVs are far more thirsty than tablets, don't iron anything you can get away with, and if, like me, you only have the will to nag your kids about one energy saving thing then ignore profligate use of left on lights and forgotten switched on tech and concentrate all energy on whittling down long showers.

1. Fit escutcheons (covers) on the external side of keyholes.
2. Lay reflective aluminium foil under ground floor carpets. Obviously, have underlay too. AND, wool carpets are much better insulators than synthetic.
3. Your loft is probably insulated, but what about the loft hatch ? If that only has minimal insulation (say a thin piece of polystyrene (also a fire risk !) get a builders’ merchant to cut you a piece of Celotex or Kingspan insulation to fit your loft hatch.

Full loads of washing, 30 degree or cold water, longer wash, extra spin. Dehumidifier to dry clothes instead of dryer. All uses less electric.

Slow cooker meals or cook everything together in the oven, including heating veg in water. Rather than oven and hob.

I've given up ironing.

@Time2getSerious please tell me more about cooking veg in the oven.

@PuzzledObserver I prepare, blanch and freeze veg from fresh. But lately instead of steaming it to go with a meal I place it in a pyrex dish with water and slot it in with the main meal in the oven. Luckily I have 3 shelves so can fit a fair bit in. Just heating it really. It does generate a far bit of steam, might be best to cover it as well. I would imagine it takes longer with fresh veg. But it saves having the hob on as well. This can be done, not necessarily with water, with quite a few things usually cooked on the hob.

Hello. Popping in to let you know that we're doing a Q&A with fuel poverty charity National Energy Action about these energy price hikes on Wednesday 23rd Feb at 12 noon. The thread is now open for questions here.