Over the next few months, we will continue to share some of our favorite easy tips for reducing carbon emissions. (If you’re a newbie-S2Zbie, you can find the other ones here!) These steps might seem small individually, but lots of little changes add up to big things! At Switch2Zero, it’s all about taking action, however small that first step may be.
Big changes can often be expensive or just not feasible to do right now! But it’s also simpler than you think to make carbon-friendly changes without spending a lot of money or massively changing your lifestyle.
Now that the weather is starting to get colder and the evenings are drawing in, let’s talk about keeping your energy use as low as you can whilst staying nice and warm!
All of the top tips this month focus on keeping yourself, your house and your water as warm as you can whilst still reducing usage and cost … and carbon emissions!
Ensure that radiators aren’t blocked!
Lots of us probably use radiators to dry our clothes in the colder months, but covering them with clothing will stop them from properly heating the rest of the room. It’s better to put clothes on an airer near the radiator. That way the whole room will be warm, and your clothes will still reap the benefits.
You can buy clothes airers that attach to radiators: they won’t block the top of the radiator, so heat is still coming into the room but your clothes are super-close to the source.
Putting furniture in front of a radiator or covering it with the curtains from a window above (even just a bit at the top) will also block the heat getting to the rest of the room.
For homes without cavity wall insulation or with not-very-good insulation … put tin foil behind your radiators.
You might think that this sounds very old school and dated … or that we have gone mad!
But no, we haven’t. Placing tin foil behind your radiator will reflect heat back into a room so that it doesn’t escape through the walls. This can significantly improve the temperature output of a radiator.
You can buy specialist radiator foil, which can be stuck on the wall with wallpaper paste for just a few pounds. Or for an even more budget-friendly version, use regular tin foil wrapped around cardboard and stuck to the wall.
You might be surprised at how much warmer your rooms feel.
Turn down your heating by 1 degree.
Yes, just one degree can make a big difference to your energy usage and costs … and – as long as lots of us do it – the planet!
This could be your water temperature and/or your heating temperature.
You’ll be surprised how much energy you save and how much your bill reduces.
You may also realize that you don’t really notice a difference in temperature. But if you do, and it’s the central heating you have adjusted, how about just adding an extra layer of clothing?
Insulate your hot water tank if you have one.
There’s a lot of talk about ground source and air source heat pumps or using solar panels, and many households will already have ‘upgraded’ to a more modern and energy-efficient combi boiler. But if you aren’t in a position to do that or you live in rented accommodation where such decisions aren’t yours to make, ensure your hot water tank gets the right TLC.
If your water tank is poorly insulated it will constantly lose heat and you will always be paying through the nose to keep the water in the tank hot. A hot water cylinder jacket is easy to fit and only costs around £20 but will save you much more in heating costs - potentially up to 10 times that amount - even in its first year!
To make sure your jacket is doing its job, check that it’s at least 80mm thick.
This last one is so simple but so easy to forget … close your doors!
If you happen to have a spare bedroom or a room that’s not in regular use, there’s no reason to keep it constantly heated. Be sure to turn the radiators off or turn down the thermostat in any unoccupied rooms.
Do still warm these rooms every now and again to avoid them becoming damp, but they don’t need heating unnecessarily. And, in the evening, when you are just in the living room or in bed, having the door closed means that heat from your fire or radiators isn’t escaping into empty rooms.
As it gets colder, we are all looking for ways to keep our homes warmer for less. Have you got any other tricks up your sleeve to help reduce energy usage over the winter months? Let us know!
Sources (FYI)
https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/insulating-tanks-and-radiators/
https://lowenergysupermarket.com/product/hot-water-insulation-jacket/
https://low-e.co.uk/blog/how-to-make-a-radiator-reflector/
