10 tips for reducing home energy costs without breaking the bank

 

 1.)Switch your energy provider

 There are many new providers of energy on the market at present offering savings up to 13%. These include:   

Bord Gais www.bordgaisenergysupply.ie 

ESB  www.esb.ie

Airtricity www.airtricity.com 

Flogas www.flogas.ie

  

2.)Get draught excluders for all doors

This might seem like quite an obvious area to protect against draughts, but if there is airflow coming through your house you are constantly heating new air as it comes into the house. An alternative option here is to look at new technologies on the market, that don't heat the air, but instead the surfaces in a home. One such example would be infrared heaters www.redwell.ie

 

3.)Get some silicone/calk and fill any small gaps around windows and doors

Again, this is about reducing the uncontrolled air flow through the house, and as such preventing the need to heat a constantly flow of air through the house. Of course ventilation is necessary in any home, so looking at mechanicaly ventilated heat retaining systems are advisable. These systems are becoming smaller and can now almost replace the vents that are common in all habitable rooms in a house. One such example can be found at the following supplier http://www.heatrecovery.ie/products.html. The simplest units start at €192+ VAT and can be inserted into existing ventilation openings. They do need a power supply brought to them and have various options available for switching on/off, including humidity sensors and PIR (proximity Infra red).

 

4.)Fix any cracked windows & reduce heat loss

Again, this is all about increasing airtightness. There are specialists on the market who can review your house in detail finding all and any gaps which are making your house more airtight, but to a large extent, if you look at it yourself and take the time to seal gaps with silicone or some filler you are in essence doing what most will charge you to do. The trick is to be able to find these gaps where draughts are coming in. There is a how to guide here which takes you through a few steps: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bloom/actions/draughtproofing.shtml .

 In addition to this, there are also products available on the market which can be applied as a film to your windows, which can prevent heat loss through the window's surface. One such product is http://www.visiongfp.ie/index.php?loc=44

 

5.)Turn off all sockets at the switch when not in use

They say that this can save 11% off your energy bills. Whilst this is unverified, there are currently new sockets being designed to cut out this problem. These particular ones are not readily available in Ireland, but this article makes for an interesting read : http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/power-socket-switch-would-cut-11-percent-electric-bills.php

Another alternative might be www.savasocket.com  , which is an energy saving socket that allows you to turn off certain appliances via your remote, and leave others on. We have yet to try it out ourselves, but it seems like a simple and cost effective way of reducing unnecessary electricity usage.

 

6.)Turn off all appliances when not in use and get more efficient appliances

This again is a major area for conservation. There are now integrated units being made which allow you control of all sockets by remote or timer. Such products are being sold by the likes of Belkin under their Conserve Range http://www.belkin.com/conserve/

You can also make use of handy little energy monitoring gadgets, with a few great products on the market at the moment. Check out http://www.diykyoto.com/ie or alternatively http://www.gadgetireland.com/green-energy/cat_38.html . Both are quite reasonably priced and simply installed and allow you to monitor your daily usage and review it via a connection to your computer. No doubt these will soon be able to integrate with Google Power Meter allowing access to your energy  usage online or from any capable mobile device.

 

7.)Get your boiler serviced

They say a boiler service can save 10-15% off your annual bills. This might be a worst case scenario where a boiler is in terrible condition, but keeping it serviced is just as important as keeping your car serviced. Online quotes are easy to come by, and one such provider would be http://www.gaswise.ie/

 

8.)Turn down the temperature

Turning down the temperature by a single degree can save you 3% on your heating bill, as a general rule of thumb. So if you drop the temp by 5 Degrees Centigrade you can potentially save 15%. Of course, the key to this working is that the home remains warm and comfortable. This is why airtightness is so important in a home, and such things as mechanical ventilation heat recovery are becoming more popular.

There are IP Thermostats available in the US, and in the UK, and no doubt they will be available here soon enough. Essentially these allow you to replace your standard room thermostat with a unit that connects to your broadband connection to allow you full control of your heating via a web-based platform, or over your iphone. These allow you to programme your temperature levels, move the thermostat to a more appropriate position, have the heating set relative to outdoor temperatures, and control your home heating remotely from any internet access point. Once these are available on the market, we will update with full details.

Of course, the alternative is to move away from heating the air through convection and try using infrared heaters such as www.redwell.ie . There are current claims out there that these can produce savings of 30-50% depending on what system you are currently using.

 

9.)Get some energy saving lightbulbs

Whilst this may not be the biggest area of saving, if you have a lot of standard Tungsten lights or Halogen downlighters there are much more efficient light sources available to you. CFL's or Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs use 75% less energy than your standard Tungsten light bulbs, and have a much greater life span on average.

LED downlighters use approximately 85% less energy.  CFL's can be easily bought in shops such as Woodies DIY http://www.buy4now.ie/woodiesdiy/shopping.aspx?loc=C&catid=110.1 , and LED downlights are readily available through many online suppliers such as http://www.atmoslighting.ie/shopping/start.php?browse=1&cat=27&=SID.

There are quite a lot of substandard LED lights available on the market at present, so the best way to chose a quality LED light that will actually last and will not deteriorate in brightness and color is to refer the the Lumen maintenance levels, i.e. how long it will maintain its Lux (light) level. For more detaild information on what this means visit http://www.philipslumileds.com/technology/lumenmaintenance. As a general rule, if it costs less than €10 per downlighter, it is more than likely not of great quality.

 

10.)Get a Home Energy Saving Survey

Of course, the items listed above should help increase your home energy efficiency, but if you are looking to make larger savings particular to your specific house, we would strongly recommend this extensive service, which will no doubt find a large amount of potential savings, and which includes a FREE BER Certificate as part of the service.

Contact Us here for a quotation