Improving your home's energy efficiency is more crucial than ever with the climate emergency and energy crisis. Fortunately, making your home more energy-efficient doesn't have to be a complex, expensive, or time-consuming process. There are several simple, low-cost steps you can take that will significantly reduce your energy bills and contribute to a greener lifestyle. 

To make your energy-saving journey easier, we’ve put together the ultimate guide to saving energy. This is part one - the low-effort, high-reward measures you should take before anything else. 

1. Upgrade to LED lights: save £12 per bulb swapped

Swap out your traditional incandescent or halogen bulbs for super-efficient LED lights - they use 90% less energy! Not only that, LEDs are affordable, long-lasting, and provide better light quality. Their low energy consumption and extended lifespan lead to significant savings.

Lighting makes up 11% of the average household electricity bill, so it pays to make the switch even if your traditional bulbs still work. 

🔌 Effort       💰💰 Reward

2. Tackle your Phantom Load: save around £266 a year

Understand how your home uses energy and you’ll be able to identify the always-on devices and energy-hungry appliances that are contributing to your Phantom Load. This is our name for the electricity used by appliances switched on or on standby, quietly using energy without you necessarily realising. It also applies to the things you know are on but don’t know what they’re costing - like smart speakers, and the things you switch on and forget about - like extra fridges.

Wasted electricity makes up around 30% of the average household bill. Identifying and rethinking how you use these appliances is a simple way to cut down on your energy consumption and save money on your bills.

🔌 Effort       💰💰💰💰 Reward

3. Optimise your heating schedule: cut your gas bill by 10%

Did you know that 70 -80% of gas used in households is spent on heating? Rethinking how you’re heating your home can yield some big savings, especially during the warmer months.

Loop users who turned theirs off by mid-April used 10% less gas than those who kept it on. If your heating is on an automatic timer, it can be easy to forget to change it when the weather warms up.

When setting your heating schedule, have your heating on only when you're normally in, and add an hour if you're at home unexpectedly. Then, have the heating turned off up to twenty minutes before you leave the house. 

Consider turning the heating off overnight and 'heat the human not the home' with the right bedding, an electric blanket or hot water bottle. 

🔌🔌Effort       💰💰  Reward

4. Adjust your radiator settings: save up to £39 a year

If you have thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs), use them!  An average home would save £33 by turning down their TRVs down to the mid-point setting for all rooms outside the living room.

Utilise TRVs on your radiators to control room temperatures and conserve energy. By adjusting them to suit your comfort levels, you can prevent overheating and only use the heat you need.

🔌 Effort       💰💰💰Reward

5. Draught-proof your home: save £52 a year

Keep hold of the warmth you’re paying for by sealing windows, doors, and unused chimneys with draught-proofing tape or chimney balloons to prevent heat loss and improve home comfort. 

As well as stopping external draughts, reduce internal draughts by keeping internal doors closed to feel warmer. 

🔌🔌🔌 Effort       💰💰💰Reward

6. Got a combi boiler? Lower your flow temperature: save 12% on your gas bill

The ‘flow temperature’ of a combi boiler is usually set between 60°C and 80°C, which is too high to run efficiently.

Reduce this to 60°C and this simple settings adjustment will improve your boiler's efficiency, all without affecting the temperature of your home.

Follow Nesta's advice to check and fix your boiler's settings here.

🔌 Effort       💰💰💰Reward

7. Compare energy bills: save 3%

You might know how much your energy bills cost, but do you know how it compares to your neighbours? Loop research revealed that 90% of people don’t know how their energy bill compares but 51% would find it useful. 

Simply benchmarking yourself against a similar household can cut your energy bill by 3%! Plus, having these conversations can encourage us to share helpful cost-saving tips.

🔌 Effort       💰💰Reward

8. Use a free energy-saving app like Loop: cut your energy use by 15%!

Simply seeing how much energy you're using and what it's costing impacts how much you use. It's called the "feedback effect", and that's where Loop can help! 

Loop is a free energy-saving app that links to your smart meter, analyses your energy use and shows you easy ways to save. Even if you don't have an in-home display, you can still access your smart meter energy data with Loop.

Track your usage over hours, days, weeks, months, and years, even when you're away from home. Get access to smart insights like how much you've spent today vs this week and even how you compare against other households. 

Download the free Loop app and in less than 5 minutes you'll have access to all Loop's great energy-saving features. 

🔌 Effort       💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰Reward (We're a little biased...!) 

9. Once you have set up your Loop account, use Alexa-enabled devices to keep track of your energy spend

You can monitor your energy usage with Loop on your smartphone and with an Alexa-enabled device. It’s never been easier to keep on top of your energy usage.  

If you measure your energy use, you are better able to control it. Now, with Alexa compatibility, you can ask out loud how much you’ve spent on energy! Seeing (and hearing!) how much you are spending is a great way of staying in control and avoiding the dreaded ‘bill shock’.

🔌 Effort       💰💰💰Reward

Next Steps

Now you’ve started your energy-saving journey and you've taken the biggest steps to improve your household’s energy efficiency, it’s time to mop up the rest of the savings.
Continue your journey with Part 2: Appliance Efficiency.

Then you’ll be ready for Part 3, the bigger long-term energy-saving measures.

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