Preparing house for winter to keep energy bills low - ideas?

[Beaucoup]

We are taking the summer months to get the house ready for winter partly to avoid energy costs going even higher.

wanted to start a thread with peoples ideas to pool together.

things we are currently doing -

1. We’ve set up ceiling lines in our south facing conservatory which is a gorgeous space for us all to sit and play/host but doubles up overnights and slow days as drying space. Tumble drier stopped being used but we do switch on the ceiling fan if we’ve hung things up.
2. getting an electric blanket for my large downstairs office for WFH days to drape over legs instead of having heating on
3. getting blankets and dressings downs for us and DC to keep in ottoman in sitting room
4. getting a few microwaveable Sheep as hot water bottles without water!

need advice on a few things -

1. is an air fryer worth it to avoid oven?
2. we lack knowledge about insulation and draught proofing particularly - particularly for bedrooms upstairs and front door too
3. assuming that electric oil filled radiators are v costly to run and isn’t worth using those in rooms we are using rather than heating on centrally?
4. spouse is thinking of smart thingies on each radiator which means rooms can have heating switched on and off remotely on a timer depending on household routines. Am not sure what these are..
5. Also thinking of smart plugs at various points in the house to auto switch off things forgotten on standby

any other ideas ?

Buy rolls of aluminium insulation foil, and lay under fitted carpets. Obviously you should have the best underlay you can afford, and if buying new carpets, wool has much better insulation qualities than man-made fibres.

And yy to insulate and ventilate – but controlled ventilation. Think about how you're getting rid of moisture from cooking and bathing and drying clothes.

An extractor fan and slightly open kitchen window, for example, may provide a nice fresh airflow while you're cooking without pulling heated air from the rest of the house.

A dehumidifier will get rid of a lot of airborne moisture while providing heat as a by-product.

If you're getting hardcore and laying something under carpets, and are prepared to spend serious money, then what you really want is aerogel.

This is increasingly becoming available for domestic building uses, and now comes in flooring, wallboards, loft blankets and other products.

www.aerogel.uk.com/index.html

Also in the spendy bracket is Mechanical Heat Recovery Ventilation, which does what it says on the tin. Fresh outdoors air coming in, being heated by warm indoors air going out.

www.dalyrenewables.com/technologies/mhrv/

As with all of these technologies, the quality of the way it's fitted will make or break the value of the system.

@HillCrestingGoat thank you. I'd definitely buy one in your situation, in mine it's not really worth the outlay. I might ask around trade friends to see if anyone has one they can lend me. But thank you for the link, it's saved me buying a cheaper crap version!!

@LucyLeaseExtension sorry, I realise I am on a thread with people wanting to reduce bills and I was saying I spent money on that. I used to work for an electricity company so am used to helping people reduce their bills which is why I was on here.

We had a garage conversion done a long time ago and the room was always colder than the rest of the house. We bought the camera to figure out why that was and then address that issue.

Escutcheons on external keyholes.

We've just installed solar panels on the roof; an initial outlay of around £4k but it will pay for itself over a number of years, and I feel good about the environmental aspect. I am furiously washing / using the dryer / dishwasher / charging devices during daylight hours to make the most of it.

The solar panels were expensive but there is a grant available here which helps. When we put them in last summer, we expected a 12 year break even time, but we had added an extra one after the grant was paid (there was space) so get loads of power, and the increased cost of electricity and gas has also reduced that potential time. I'm including gas because the gas boiler has barely been used for the past 6 weeks since turning off the rads for summer - we have a full tank of hot water most days from the sun (and often 2 if someone is sensible enough to have their shower in the mid-late afternoon as it reheats by evening on a sunny day).

So I don't know the exact maths, and we don't yet have money paid back to use for anything we export TO the grid, but it's definitely significantly reduced time period now. And payback for exporting is due to come relatively soon (it'll be peanuts we know, but we also know that we DO export some of what we generate so every little helps).

And more importantly, our electricity bill last quarter was the same as the previous year, despite the significant increase in energy prices. I'm hoping both gas and electricity will be significantly lower when they come next week now that the long days are really kicking in and pumping out the power.

One of our bedrooms on the cold wall has an insulating type of wallpaper, it's about 2cm thick & is really spongy- its the warmest room in the house.

Hi
Can anyone recommend a portable heater? Are oil filled ones the cheapest to run?My DD bedroom is cold so I could do with a little heater for her room.
Also my loft is partially boarded but it has no insulation.Is this something I could do ? Can I buy insulation and just lay it down or will I need to rip up the boards and put underneath?
TIA

@Livvyliv18 I definitely recommend an oil filled radiator.

They are cheap to run, have a thermostat so you can leave them on when you’re out/asleep and they provide a nice gentle background warmth without drying out the air like other portable heaters. They’re safer than halogen heaters I think.

My first ever flat had no central heating and one oil filled radiator was enough to warm it in the winter.

I wouldn’t bother with the tiny ones
but the standard size are easy to lift and move (but you need to allow the oil to settle for a little while after moving them before it’ll switch on).

If you don't use your loft boards for anything, you can just buy soft insulation and lay it over the top, not leaving any gap at the edges for air to flow under the boards.

I'd strongly recommend taking a photo of the extent of the boarding first, though, and keeping it in your house logbook. Or even better marking the edge of the boards in some highly visible way. Otherwise that's a recipe for some unwary future loft-user to put a foot through the ceiling.

Your other option would be to lay insulated loft boards over your existing loft boards. Again, make sure there are no gaps round the edges between the insulated boards and your soft insulation.

Some brand names:
Tekwarm
bmdgroup.co.uk/collections/loft-insulation/products/tekwarm-insulated-loft-deck-1200-x-600-x-86mm

Ravatherm XPS (formerly called Styroloft)
www.panelsystems.co.uk/product/styroloft

But just google thermal loft board.

Two things have worked for me and brought my energy bills at the time:

1. heat pump - to heat water; this is an expensive purchase but if you have a house and put on solar panels it'll pay for itself faster but you can get sb to calculate that for you (it depends on where you live really); a heat pump, in terms of thermodyamics (the science of energy) is the most efficient system because you don't provide the system with Energy (I'm assuming electricity or gas) as it uses the Energy in air, so it uses what's available instead of you having to put it into the system.
2. instead of using the "big oven" that comes under the stove, I bought a smaller freestanding one -this one I didn't notice on the bill but I noticed that before whenever I turned it on the light would sometimes go out because it uses so much power that I couldn't have 2 washing machines on at the same time, after I started using the smaller one it never happened again.

Regarding your question about heating the whole house or the rooms you need... You need energy to heat a certain volume. The bigger the volume, the more energy you'll need, so it'll always be cheaper to only heat rooms where you spend the most time and close off the rest. It's important to close off the other rooms, otherwise hot air will move to cooler rooms where the pressure's smaller (this has to do with thermodynamics and is related to PV=nRT and the 2nd law of thermodynamics if memory serves me right, it was a looong time ago!).

I'm in the process of boarding out my loft and using thick insulation under the boards.

I've stuck thermofoil behind my radiators.

Has my back door fixed so it now closes properly without leaving a gap like it used to. The guy even gave me some new westherstrip for free. Bye bye draught.

Not using the dryer any more (dont need to in this heat). But Ive bought myself some.airers and a dehumidifier.

Will be sealing/caulking any draughty windows over summer.

Bought electric blankets that go under my bed sheet. Kids have them on their beds too.

All plugs switched off at bed time.

Apologies if it's been mentioned but gas boilers use less gas if you turn the temperature setting on the boiler down. Most are set too high. Modern boilers are meant catch an extra 5 or 10% of the heat that would otherwise be lost out of the flue (the so called 'consensing' bit) but it only works if they are turned down to about 50 or 60 degrees, But for some unknown reason (to sell more gas??) , the service engineers nearly always set them to 80.

It is easy to turn it down (and back up again if you need to). The effect will be to have the heating on for longer with radiators only hot, not scalding hot. The same amout of heat goes into the house but over a longer time, but for the same amount of heat you also use less gas.

There is a link here that explains how to do it, Here
(though it says you can only do it in a combi , which isn't true as we did it on our old boiler which was condensing but not a combi as we have a hot water tank).

Its free to do and you can do it right away - remember to check after the engineer has done a service too though!

If you have bedrooms in the eaves make sure the low vertical walls have insulation behind them. We used to live in a chalet bungalow the roof slopes were fully insulated and ventilated but it was only plasterboard on the walls. We stuck kingspan to the non room side of the plasterboard and the bedrooms are now toasty.
Be very careful if you are using wheat bag type things in the microwave. They are much more dangerous than an old fashioned hot water bottle
www.westsussex.gov.uk/news/reminder-of-dangers-of-wheat-bags-after-fire/
Current house has no curtains so I’m going to hang curtains at every window. Curtain tracks are better than poles for draught proofing. Charity shops, ebay, Facebook for second hand curtains and you can always use an old think pair to line a thin nicer pair if you use the tape and hook method of hanging.
Ive put pieces of carpet over the flag floors.
All washing is dried on the line but I’m lucky as the garden is sunny and not sheltered from the wind! I’ll dry the washing in the living room where the wood burner is in the winter. Damp won’t be a problem as there’s an air brick for the wood burner which pulls fresh air in. When the woodburner is lit we boil or fry on it instead of the cooker. We have three aga kettles which we boil on the wood burner
hot water will be the problem for us.

@PerkingFaintly I've looked at these types of products in the past. Have you had any experience of them - ie cost and ease of install, and do you need experienced installers? period house with features, hence looking at thinner insulation.

I've never installed aerogel, though I'd love to.

You've put your finger on the issue: the installation matters.

When I've looked into it, the suppliers have been very keen to give advice on how to install their products well. IIUC, a bad installation with lots of gaps will still keep your house warmer, but gives nothing like the value for money it could.

IIUC aerogel boards are likely to be within a DIYers scope if you're averagely handy and prepared to Read The Instructions. Which is just as well, because in my experience there aren't that many tradesfolk prepared to lavish the time and care to (a) read the instructions and (b) follow them.

Get thee to the Green Building Forum for people who really know their stuff, including for period buildings.

www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/

(MHRV and external insulation also have the same issue: the devil is in the detail of the installation to get your money's worth.)

I have wooden floors in most rooms...either original sanded or new tongue and groove ones.....no drafts but i have been buying up large rugs when i see them cheap on local selling sites....£5 for a giant 200 x 240 cm rug...now have about 6 and will layer them in the rooms over the floors etc....also looking out for warm curtains to hang at garden doors etc.

This might sound a bit weird and may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I find sleeping on and under fleece makes a terrific difference in winter - I no longer use the electric blanket or hot water bottles. My H and I sleep separately and I think he would boil but I'm a cold sleeper. Beneath me is a fleece teddy bear throw (Dunelm) and possibly the same above, or otherwise a brushed cotton duvet cover. It's so warm.
Being an old fart I spent my formative years without central heating. Heating just one room to a decent temp. is manageable for the coldest weather. I think I would rather have one nice warm room that every room lukewarm.

I have invested in some new curtains made of nice heavy fabric, interlined and a pelmet. Growing up we always closed the curtains as the sun went down so now I'm WFH I'll be stricter in doing the same.
I have plenty of hot water bottles and blankets for bed and sofa.
I also have an air fryer and batch cook, i also keep a pantry of lovely tinned soups, bombay potato, baked beans etc for easy lunches.

Just bought an air fryer. It will arrive on wednesday. Cannot wait to try it. Hope it saves pennies.

Ooo love a good prepping thread!

So far I have...

Bought an air fryer so oven rarely goes on now.

Trying to cut down on tumble dryer use have bought lots of those ring peg things for all the pants socks wipes etc I usually tumble. Have also had a dehumidifier for years in the utility where we dry clothes on clothes racks

Thermal socks and snood for me when WFH when children at school so not putting heating on just for me

Debating getting more draught excluder a we have a large draughty house

Debating a door curtain for the front door. Have decided not to put radiator on in the hall in winter as I'm sure all the heat just goes out the front door tbh

Would love any other ideas!

So far we have -

1. brought gas bill down to 30-50 p a day by switching heating entirely off since April and hot water on for 45 mins every morning.
2. stopped tumble drier entirely since April and installed long ceiling lines high up in playroom.
3. stopped using cooker entirely since May and switched fully to Instant Pot, Air Fryer, Microwave and Rice Cooker.
4. Lots of blankets and throws
5. Things getting switched off at wall.
6. building up credit with energy company

Massive drop in gas and electricity bill so far - from March till June end. We watch the smart meter data daily on Energy company app.

saving money for smart radiator valves from hive and smart plugs to go in for October.