There are three main ways to cut your heating bills.
Changing heating provider or change how heat is provided to your house.
Often times you will have an alternative to heating your house, whether it be from gas, oil or even underground heating. Also sometime in your area there may be more than one provider of gas, so it pays to look around and see which is the cheapest source of heating
Improving the insulation of your house.
- Windows are a top priority as most heat is lost through windows, if you don’t have double glazing now could be the time to install it, generally this is a more long term strategy though as the cost of the install will not be paid off by the energy saving for at least five year, if energy prices go back up again though this may change.
- Identify any drafts in your house, these can be sealed up simply and once eliminated will lead to a significantly warmer house. Generally drafts will be coming from either the floor or any joints, or can be coming through poorly sealed windows. You can consider covering windows with plastic sheets as a cheap form of insulation, this is only really useful on windows which are not usually opened.
- Choose the right house this is probably the single most important aspect, see if you can choose a house which is already energy efficient. Unfortunately so much of the house stock currently has been built poorly in this regard, that this can be easier said than done.
Changing your behaviour
There are simple ways that you can change your behaviour to improve the energy usage in your house. You can make sure that you turn off lights whenever you leave a and are not planning to come back any time soon. You can switch your light bulbs to energy efficient light bulbs. You can turn down the heating temperature gauge a notch, you can turn off your heating over night and add an extra blanket.
