Everything’s Getting More Expensive

Let’s discuss how you can save money on energy bills this winter.

Prices are soaring increasingly quickly, with no signs of slowing any time soon.

This is a growing concern for homeowners across the country, and for good reason.

In 2020, the Low Pay Commission estimated that 7% of all UK workers are paid the national minimum wage.

Money-saving Expert, Martin Lewis, announced on This Morning that he thinks homeowners could face energy bills averaging at £2,500.

So…

How Do I Save Money on My Energy Bills?

1. Ensure Your Radiators Have TRVs

A TRV (Thermostatic Radiator Valve) allows you to adjust the amount of heated water which enters your radiator.

A radiator without a TRV is essentially on all the time, which will invariably lead to more energy being wasted than the alternative:

Fit

2. Don’t Trust Your Senses! (Trust Your Thermostat)

Don’t think that, because your radiator is hot to touch, your rooms are receiving adequate heating.

As our multidisciplined plumber & gas engineer Fraser explains in the short video below, people often make the mistake of attempting to gauge room temperature by feeling for the heat produced by their radiator:

3. Try Setting Your Radiators to 55°C

The size of the average home in the UK has been in a downtrend for decades.

This means there’s a good chance your radiators are actually oversized for the size of your room(s), and so our plumber/gas engineer Fraser recommends going to your boiler and setting your radiator temperatures to 55°C.

Try it out. You might not notice any difference to the temperature, while noticing a difference to the cost of your energy bill.

4. Wash Your Hands With Cold Water

If, like most people, you use soap when you wash your hands, then you don’t really NEED any hot water—your soap will eliminate all (or 99.9%) of germs on your hands.

Making this tip all the more legitimate is the fact that, often, by the time you’ve finished washing your hands with soap and water, the water only becomes hot as you’re finishing/finished.

Using hot water to wash your hands may feel more comfortable, but it will cost you more in the long run, both in energy bills, and in boiler repairs.

Boilers use the most energy heating up the first 25°C of water, meaning that every time you use hot water to wash your hands, your giving your boiler a run for its money, each of which will contribute to the date of your boilers inevitable breakdown.

5. Disable Pre-Heat Mode on Your Boiler

Pre-Heat mode, when enabled, ensures that your boiler turns on and off automatically, with the goal of storing readily available hot water at all times.

However, most modern boilers don’t take long to heat up water running to your taps and showers, which is why we’d generally advise tuning your boiler’s pre-heat function off.

With Pre-Heat mode disabled, your boiler only starts up when you actually need hot water, which is definitely not 24h of the day, meaning you’ll save a noticeable amount of money on your energy bill by turning it off at your boiler.

Fraser demonstrates how to disable pre-heat mode on your boiler in the video we linked above, in Tip 2.

6. Try Configuring Your Thermostat Target Temperatures To 17°C-19°C

Fraser has found that, by setting a target temperature of 17°C-19°C, his heating will only turn on when the temperature in his home falls below this temperature.

He finds that his boiler doesn’t use a lot of energy meeting this target, and that this is the CHEAPEST setting he has found for his home thermostat.

Try it out in your home, see if it makes a difference to your energy bill.

Now Go Forth and Save Money on Energy

We hope you find these tips to save money on energy bill useful.

If you want to SAVE TIME arranging boiler inspections, servicing, and repairs in your home or buy-to-let property:

CLICK HERE if you’re a landlord;

CLICK HERE if you’re a homeowner.

– KH