How To Save On Energy Bills in 2024 Energy Saving Tips & Advice

Video: How to SAVE up to £580 a YEAR on your energy bills with a NEW boiler!

It might not be a good idea to replace old appliances or a boiler if they are still in use. However, you need to consider the future of energy and how it will affect your home. Find out more here:

How to save energy and your gas bill with the price cap increase

With the energy price cap changing, in this article, you can find out how to save money on your annual energy bills by replacing an old inefficient boiler with a condensing boiler or a hydrogen-ready boiler, and, if you’re not ready for a complete change, you can simply adopt a few lifestyle habits to start saving right away!

What consumes the most gas & electricity in your home?

Chances are, heating is the most expensive energy requirement in your home because heating is essential in colder weather and because our energy bills are gradually increasing.

Appliances also consume power, but it requires much more energy to heat the entire house. This is why choosing an A-rated green boiler to reduce energy consumption is so important.

If you want to reduce your annual energy bills, the first place to focus your attention is on your home heating. Start with energy efficiency – reduce your consumption of energy and change your habits with a smart meter.

Why you should change to an A-rated gas boiler

Next, consider switching to renewable energy and replacing your boiler. Here’s a nice infographic of the monthly running costs of items in your home as you can see, the main reason to change to an A-rated boiler is that your boiler uses the most energy in your home!

A G-rated boiler could be costing you 3 times as much in gas and electricity. Changing from a G-rated boiler to an A-rated boiler will save an estimated £580 per year since the energy price increase.

Can a new energy-efficient boiler reduce your gas and electricity bill?

With oil and gas prices rising year after year, we need to find more efficient ways of generating heat for our homes. Replacement gas and oil boilers are far more efficient than old ones.

This not only saves money but it reduces the number of hydrocarbons like CO2 in the atmosphere. A new energy-efficient boiler such as a condensing boiler reduces your output.

A condensing boiler is an efficient type of boiler. As with other boilers, a condensing boiler generates heat by burning gas and oil, but instead of gases from the heat disappearing up the flue and into the air, it is recycled and used to heat water and radiators, thus lowering energy bills. Check out some best combi boilers to start saving now.

Energy-saving tips – How to reduce your gas and electricity bills

Switch off standby appliances

We all leave appliances on standby or forget to unplug them; typical devices include smartphones, televisions, computers, laptops, lamps, and charging ports. It’s easy to overlook these, especially since they seem to have such a minimal impact on energy bills.

Some people even wonder if you should turn off a boiler during summer too, but it’s not that advantageous.

But don’t be fooled! In reality, you could save some money here. Leaving these devices plugged in or on standby is not very economical; in fact, it can increase your annual energy bill by £30 per year. With energy costs on the rise, we need to look for new ways to save energy costs, and this is certainly one of them.

Install a smart thermostat to lower gas bills

When looking to save money on your energy costs, it makes sense to use any available technologies. Thankfully, at the same time that energy costs are going up, new technologies are emerging that make it easier and more realistic to save money on your home energy costs.

A smart thermostat like the Tado or a Neomitis thermostat is an innovative device that learns how much power you need to heat certain rooms in your home.

It can also be programmed to switch on and off at the most relevant times therefore Using one of these smart thermostats can reduce your annual energy bill by up to £75.

Turn down your heating to save gas

It sounds simple but turning your heating down is one of the best ways to save on your annual energy bill. This also includes your combi boiler temperature too on your boiler settings.

According to the energy saving trust, people overuse their heating, whether it is on too high for the room, or simply left on when it doesn’t need to be, so why waste money by overheating?

The Energy Saving Trust estimates that turning your heating down by one degree can save your household around £80 per year; that’s enough to heat your home for an extra month or two! Use a smart thermostat like Hive or Nest to adjust heating or manually switch off heating in unused rooms.

Purchase efficient appliances

Older appliances were not designed to be energy efficient as their designers had other priorities which means that existing appliances in your home probably demand more power from your energy supplier than appliances designed today. But, luckily, you don’t need to ditch everything right away.

Switching all of your appliances will save money, but it also produces waste which is also inefficient. Instead, wait until your existing appliances wear out and then replace them with energy-efficient ones. Opt for an A+++ appliance to save around 10% on your home energy bills.

Consider washing your clothes at a lower temperature

Washing your clothes at higher temperatures increases the amount of energy you draw from the grid. While higher temperatures are sometimes needed for white goods and bedsheets, they aren’t necessary for general clothing, so there is an opportunity to save with your machine.

Instead of washing your clothing at 40 degrees, try washing them at 30 degrees. A 30-degree wash is still warm enough to kill the majority of bacteria but saves 10 degrees of electricity. Also, try to reduce your weekly wash cycles by one wash to save around £5 per year on power. We also recommend that as soon as you can, stop using your tumble dryer as much!

Use water more wisely

Electricity and granaries are not the only way to save on your annual energy costs; water also costs money. By using water wisely in your home, you can reduce your annual energy costs significantly. Start by turning off your taps when washing up, and fit efficient showerheads.

If you ask an energy supplier, they will recommend using a bowl to wash up rather than running the tap for rinsing, and this practice can save you around £25 per year on your energy consumption. If you fit an energy-efficient showerhead, you can save around £28 per year.

Use energy-saving light bulbs to lower electricity bills

When was the last time you thought about the lighting in your home? If you run incandescent light bulbs, you might have thought about the cost of them as you search the supermarket shelves for replacement bulbs. These days, an energy supplier would suggest LED bulbs instead.

Switching from incandescent light bulbs to LED light bulbs is one of the most popular energy-saving tips on the internet today, that’s because the switch can save you around 75% on your energy usage. To put that in perspective, it’s the difference between paying £5 or £1 for lighting.

Invest in double glazing

How much energy do you spend heating your home? It requires a lot of energy (and therefore a lot of money) to heat a room, which is why insulation is so important. If you are spending money heating rooms, the last thing you want is for the heat to disappear through windows.

Unfortunately, uPVC windows are one of the primary ways that heat escapes from the home, so if you’re interested in energy saving, then it’s best to invest in double glazing.

If your entire home has single glazing, replacing these windows with double glazing can save up to £110 per year.

On top if you have an old wooden doors, it may be a good idea to invest in a new composite doors as they are far more energy efficient.

Draught-proof your home

If you want to reduce your electricity bills to reinvest in your home or reduce your carbon footprint, then think about draught-proofing your home. Draught-proofing not only reduces the heat lost through floors, walls, and roofs it also reduces the need to turn the heat on.

Save more energy from your energy suppliers with simple DIY fixes to seal cracks, fill in unused chimneys and hang heavy curtains on your windows. These might seem like small efforts to make, but they all add up and can save you around £35 per year of household energy costs.

Insulate the roof

Save electricity as well as money on your heating bills by insulating your roof. According to energy experts, the roof accounts for around 25% of heat loss in a home, so if you don’t have adequate insulation yet, it’s time to start making some enquiries and using less energy.

There’s not much point in generating heat for your home when it quickly escapes through the roof, but if you insulate with foam or wool, you can lower the heating requirements of your home and save around £135 per year on your gas and electricity bill, which is a significant saving.

Use a modulating boiler

Energy is saved by boiler modulation. To achieve greater fuel savings, modulating boilers operate at part-load, reducing fuel consumption and improving energy transfer. Modulating boilers is cost-effective and energy-efficient. They save energy by keeping the same temperature throughout their use cycle.

Solar panels to save money on your electricity bills

Solar panels although it is impossible to run a home solely using them are a great way to lower energy use.

As the energy market is increasing its fixed tariff prices, solar thermal panels can only help you use less energy from the national grid and energy companies.

Solar energy could help lower your heating bill if you connected them to an immersion heater if you have a hot water cylinder. This could help keep your hot water warm during the day rather than using gas from your boiler.

How to simultaneously cut your energy costs and repair costs.

Having a boiler cover might help you avoid expensive repair costs because servicing enables problems to be fixed before they drain your finances. Our boiler cover package includes a boiler service completely free of charge. Additionally, the boiler service may examine your boiler’s performance to prevent energy waste and help you save money on energy costs.

Use thermostatic radiator valves on your central heating system

Thermostatic radiator valves or TRVs as they are more commonly known can help increase your home’s energy efficiency.

Along with your room thermostat, you can use thermostatic radiator valves to control each room separately so you don’t have to warm a room up that you are not using and could save you money on your gas and electricity bills in the long term

Buy better radiators

We are constantly worried about how efficient our boiler is we sometimes forget that the actual heat in our homes comes out of the radiators. As you can imagine, some radiators are better than others in how they transfer heat into your home. The cost of new radiators isn’t cheap, but in the long run, a radiator that is energy efficient could save you more than you pay for them. The best thing now is that you can also get a radiator that is energy efficient yet great to look at.

Invest in underfloor heating

If you have a small area such as a bathroom or kitchen that has a radiator, you could consider underfloor heating. The cost of underfloor heating could be justified if used properly, and you can have the choice of wet or dry underfloor heating. If you have a really small area, electric underfloor heating could be just right for you, especially considering the huge rises in gas prices recently. If you have a large area or an air source heat pump, then wet underfloor heating could be a fantastic money-saving solution for your energy bills.

Saving on your gas bills FAQs

Does a condensing boiler require a hot water tank to be efficient?

A condensing boiler is a highly efficient home boiler that recycles gases that would otherwise travel through the flue and escape into the air. At present, this system accounts for an enormous contribution to CO2 in the atmosphere, but things are changing with these boilers.

A condensing boiler works the same way as a combination boiler (sometimes called a combi boiler). There is no water tank! Instead, water is piped through the boiler and heated using a heat exchanger. When you request hot water, the heat exchanger turns on to heat the water.

Are energy-efficient hydrogen-ready boilers available in the UK?

A hydrogen-ready boiler is the same as a combination boiler which is still the most popular type of boiler in the U. but can just run on a blend of hydrogen and natural gas. The reason is that hydrogen-ready combination boilers are compact and efficient. a hydrogen-ready combi boiler can be stored in a cupboard and heat water presently without any wastage.

The main difference between a gas combination boiler and a hydrogen-ready boiler is the capability to run on 20% hydrogen. Like a gas combination boiler, a hydrogen-ready boiler heats water using gas and hydrogen, but it has the option of using hydrogen instead in the future, which is much cleaner. These are becoming popular in the UK and there are 100% hydrogen boiler prototypes in development already too.

How efficient in terms of cost is a condensing boiler?

Condensing boilers are the only choice of boiler in the UK thanks to their efficiency. According to manufacturers, condensing boilers can achieve efficiency levels of up to 98%, which is better than conventional systems that reach 80%.

Condensing boilers are highly efficient and highly environmental, which means it is significantly cheaper to run a condensing boiler after it is installed. However, the running costs of these boilers are still dependent on the fluctuating cost of global gas and oil prices.

What’s the difference in efficiency between a condensing and a non-condensing boiler?

The majority of UK homes run on condensing boilers. A non-condensing boiler releases hydrocarbons into the atmosphere through a flue; these can be combination boilers or conventional boilers. Conversely, a condensing boiler recycles the gases and uses them for heat.

A condensing boiler isn’t entirely clean as whenever you burn a fossil fuel like gas or oil, some CO2 release is unavoidable; that said, a condensing boiler is capable of capturing up to 11% more heat than non-condensing boilers, which works out at a saving of around £310 per year on costs.

Energy-saving tips – Final thoughts

As energy prices rise across the globe due to a reduction in gas and oil resources, households everywhere are looking at ways to live more efficiently and cheaply. But personal finance is not the only motivation; climate concerns are too, as new technologies become more popular.

There’s some good news, heating your home efficiently and cheaply is becoming easier and more realistic. If you can’t afford a new condensing hydrogen-ready boiler, you can make smart lifestyle changes instead, these include using smart thermostats and insulation.