Save energy, save money

What Would You Do With An Extra £200 per Year

You can combat high energy bills, climate change and global warming by making small changes to your habits and lifestyle. None of these suggestions will deprive you of home comforts, but combined with other people’s efforts, they will have a big impact for the planet – and your bills.

Some of the 40 below are priced to show the immediate effect of following the guidance, which could save you over £200 a year, but if all the actions are taken you could save much more.

Why not start today? You’ve got nothing to lose and plenty to gain.

Free advice on how to save energy - 0800 054 6816

With the ever increasing cost of trying to keep your homes warm during the colder months, Origin Housing has teamed up with Climate Energy to offer residents free advice on how to save energy and reduce fuel bills. By making a quick call to 0800 054 6816 you can talk to a friendly person on ways to reduce your energy consumption and save money.

Climate Energy are specialists in everything ‘green’, trained advisors will discuss top-tips for energy saving and ideas that can help save money.

40 Easy ways to save money and cut your carbon footprint

Heating

1.	Turn down your room heating thermostat by one degree. Each degree reduction saves 10% on bills – each degree can be worth up to £40 savings a year.
2.	Use the boiler controls, programmers and thermostatic radiator valves to optimise performance. Set controls to go off or come on 30 minutes before you go out/ come back. Compared to more typical use this can save up to £30 a year.
3.	Set your hot water or immersion thermostat to a maximum of 60 degrees. It doesn’t need to be higher than this.

Power

4.	Turn all appliances off and don’t leave on standby. Up to 90% of power is used when on standby. If equipment is turned off or a stand-by plug used this can save up to £40 a year for just one TV.
5.	Replace traditional light bulbs with low energy ones. Low energy bulbs can save £10 per year on electricity bills and will save £60 over their lifetime as they can last ten times as long as standard bulbs.
6.	Turn off lights when leaving the room –this can typically save up to £30 a year
7.	Turn off mobile phone, ipods and laptops when not in use.
8.	Use rechargeable batteries. This can save money and reduce harmful waste to the environment in disposing of spent batteries.
9.	When buying new household goods – fridge, freezer, dish washer, washing machine, drier, kettle, TVs etc buy those rated A or A +.
10.	Buy an electricity monitor to assess how much electricity you are using.
11.	Switch to paying for energy by Direct Debit. Contact your energy supplier for further details of how to switch to paying by direct debit. Some offer additional discounts for paperless on line billing

Kitchen

12.	Washing Clothes at 30 degrees C instead of 40+ degrees will wash clothes effectively and save around £15 a year.
13.	Don’t use washing machines and dishwashers on half loads. Wait until you have a full load to wash.
14.	Use economy programmes wherever possible on washing machines and dishwashers
15.	Boiling only the amount of water you actually need each time in the kettle can save up to £25 a year.
16.	Don’t leave fridge and freezer doors open for longer than necessary
17.	Defrost fridges and freezers regularly and let food cool before you put it in the fridge.
18.	Full freezers and fridges are more cost effective than half empty ones
19.	Use the right size pan for the rings and keep lids on saucepans. This reduces the amount of heat required
20.	Pressure cookers, steamers and microwaves can all save energy
21.	Turn off the oven at 5 – 10 minutes before the meal is ready and allow the food to keep warm in the residual heat (but not if you are cooking a soufflé!)
22.	Use the oven as sparingly as possible – if you do use it, try to cook the whole meal in it
23.	Part cook certain items in the microwave, then finish them off in the oven eg jacket potatoes

Water

Water is a limited (and increasingly) expensive resource if you have a water meter, but it takes a good deal of energy and cost to purify water for domestic use. The following items include some ideas to limit use.

Bathroom

24.	Have a shower not a bath. A five minute showers will use less than half of the water needed for a bath.
25.	Fit a low water showerhead (6/9 litre/min) to the existing flexible pipe. This can reduce the amount of water used by up a further 15%.
26.	Fit a hippo or water reducing container in older toilets. This reduces the water used by up to 30% but is still sufficient to flush the toilet effectively.
27.	Fix leaking taps and overflows and always make sure they are properly turned off. A dripping tap can waste enough water to fill a bath in two weeks!
28.	Turn the taps off when you brush your teeth. You can use up to 2 litres of water if you don’t.

Garden

29.	Do not use a hosepipe. Use water butts to collect rainwater.
30.	Use a watering can for the garden and bucket to wash the car.
31.	Apply mulch around plants to retain moisture and deter weeds.
32.	Make compost from left over food, grass and hedge cuttings and dead plants.
33.	Use the compost to feed plants and improve the soil and do not buy peat based products.

General

34.	Dry clothes outside wherever possible. Don’t dry clothes on radiators, as this reduces the effect of the heating and will use more energy to heat the room. Use a clothes horse or drying rack.
35.	Heat escapes through windows even when they are closed. Closing curtains at dusk helps reduce this to keep heating costs down.
36.	Using draught excluders or weather strips on doors and windows can save up to £20 a year.
37.	Reuse and recycle as much as possible. If every UK home recycled half of its refuse, CO2 emissions would fall by 6m tonnes a year.

Travel

38.	Walk more or cycle, especially on short journeys which are very inefficient by car.
39.	Leave your car at home one workday a week and use public transport or share a car/give a lift.
40.	Drive your car in a more economical way.