We have compiled a range of guides and resources to help you find useful information about saving energy around the home.

Dos

Energy rating

Make sure you check the energy rating for your product. A lower quality energy rating fridge could potentially use more energy than a better one. You can actually find a well priced factory second fridge fairly cheap ( see factoryseconds.org.uk ), but make sure you check the energy rating.

Turn Things Off

Always turn off TVs, DVDs and games consoles when not in use – they can burn through the power, even in standby mode. Lights – that is a no-brainer, turn them off!

Get Insulated

There are free insulation schemes, and subsidised deals in some hardware stores. You could save money by installing insulation in your attic/loft or any upper roof space. Get insultated!

Get A Power Saving Plug

There are loads of awesome power saving devices, including plugs which turn off all connected devices. Like magic. MAGIC.

Don’ts

Leave Things On

Leave your computer or laptop on if you aren’t using it. Didn’t we already cover this?

Leave Windows And Doors Open With The Heating On

Think about it. That is silly. Unless you really need air. In which case it is fine.

Physically Poor Money Down the Drain

If you were consider literally get pennies and pouring them down the drain – don’t do that. Not only would it be a waste of money, but it could block your drain.

Useful resources

• http://www.futurefriendly.co.uk/tips.aspx
• http://www.energysavers.gov/
• http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/

Using less energy in your home doesn’t just help to save the planet – it can help to save you money as well.

Rising fuel prices mean that electricity and gas are becoming more and more expensive, but you can offset this by making more efficient use of energy in your home. In this article, we look at some of the best energy saving gadgets that are currently on the market. Remember, though, that if you buy any particularly expensive energy saving gadgets you should insure them, or you could be left severely out of pocket in the event of a house fire or a burglary. For a broad range of competitive Santander home insurance deals, visit Santander.co.uk.

Standby Savers

With many appliances, such as televisions and laptop computers, putting them on standby mode does not stop them from consuming power. This wasted energy is known as ‘vampire draw’ and accounts for a large proportion of domestic energy wastage. While you can stop this by turning off appliances at the socket whenever they are not in use, this is not always convenient, and requires a degree of vigilance on the part of all the occupants of your property to be effective. You can, however, get special sockets that will turn appliances such as televisions off when you press the power button on your remote, rather than putting them on standby.

Wind Up and Solar Radios

Radios consume a surprisingly small amount of energy when in use, but if you leave them plugged into the mains for long periods of time or use batteries, then they can end up consuming a lot more energy than they really need to. You can get around this problem with a radio that can be powered with solar energy or with a wind up dynamo. You may be surprised to find out just how long a radio will work for after being wound up, and if you leave a solar powered radio in your windowsill, you may never need to connect it to the mains or replace the batteries.

Energy Saving Bulbs

Modern energy saving bulbs such as CFLs (Compact Flourescent Lights) and LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) provide the same amount and quality of light as old fashioned incandescent types, but use a lot less energy. By replacing your old lightbulbs with modern energy saving types, you can save a small fortune in electrical bills. It should be noted that while CFLs are cheap and energy efficient, they contain chemicals that can harm the environment when disposed of in landfill, so if you really want to help the environment, you might want to splash out on the even more energy efficient, longer-lasting, and less enviro-toxic LED lightbulbs that have come onto the market in recent years.

While almost everyone will agree that recycling is a good thing, the biggest deterrent is the fact you
often need to go out of your way in order to recycle your waste. While most of us no longer have
to take a trip to the local recycling centre in order to offload our paper, glass bottles and tin cans,
recycling things such as electronics is still often a chore we could do without.

What most people don’t realise is one of the easiest things to recycle is an old mobile phone. With
most of us upgrading at least once every 18 months chances are you probably have at least one old
handset tucked in a drawer or at the back of a cupboard somewhere. In recent years a number of
mobile phone recycling sites have popped up which make recycling an old mobile about as easy
as it gets. Not only that but they’ll even give you cash for all your old mobiles, it doesn’t get much
better than being paid to help the environment.

Compare and Recycle is a mobile recycling comparison site which will find you the best price for
your old mobile phone by comparing the prices offered by all the top recycling companies. Not only
can they find you the best price but they’ll also give you all the information you need to choose a
company that will make recycling your old mobiles as painless as possible. You’ll be able to find a
company who will post you an envelope, give your free postage and even pay the money directly
into your account.

Here are twelve helpful tips to reduce your energy consumption. Remember, reducing energy consumed saves the environment aswell as helps your financial situation!

Tip Number One: Do not forget to switch the light-switch off when leaving the room. Neglecting to turn off lights can increase your carbon footprint as well as adding an unnecessary cost to running your household.

Tip Number Two: Remember to make sure that your using energy effecient lightbulbs. Using a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), also known as a compact fluorescent light or energy saving light. They consume much less energy and have a longer life-span than a ordinary bulb. They cost more to buy than ordinary bulbs, they save money in the long term due to the energy savings.

Tip Number Three: Try to fully load the washing machine, tumble dryer or dishwasher. Only using these appliances once rather than twice a day will save energy. Also make sure the washing machine is set to 40 degrees, this saves energy also. When buying these appliances make sure you research which are the most energy effecient to purchase.

Tip Number Four: When using a kettle, only pour in the exact amount of water needed, kettles consume lots of energy so only boil what is neccessary.

Tip Number Five: Insulating your Loft is one of the best ways of trapping heat in your home. Heat travels upwards, and approximatly 25% of heat loss occurs through the roof. Insulating your loft will be a very wise investment that will save yourself money in the long term.

Tip Number Six: Closing curtains is a si ple yer effective way of preventing warming air leaving the house and slowing down cold air entering house.

Tip Number Seven: Replacing old boiler with newer advanced energy effceint one can save yourself potentially up to £200 a year.

Tip Number Eight: Make sure that electircal appliances are not on standby when not in use.

Tip Number Nine: Make sure Windows are double glazed, they can greatly reduce the cold air from entering your home. Triple will only slightly reduce cold air entering the room, though noise pollution is noticeably reduced.

Tip Number Ten: Turn down the temperature  on your thermostat. Turning down your thermosat by one degree can save yourself money and well as reduce your carbon footprint, remember you want your house to be warm it does not need to feel like a sauna!

Tip Number Eleven: Make sure there are no leeking taps in your house, this is a waste of precious water resources. Fixing leeking taps is especially needed when its a hot water tap, as this costs u more and adds needlessly to your carbon footprint.

Tip Number Twelve: Have showers instead of baths, showers consume much less energy and water.

Photo by futureatlas.com

Bills have been reduced as a result of customers acting on the energy efficiency tips from the supplier and through the impact of British Gas’ energy price cuts.

The findings contradict recent reports of the wider trend that energy customers in general have faced an increase in their fuel costs in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the same period last year (source: energyhelpline.com, 15 April 2010).

British Gas, which provides gas and electricity to more than 10 million households, has analysed the fuel bills of its customers for the first three months of 2010, and has discovered they are, on average, £373, which is £8 less than bills during the same period last year.

British Gas believes the increased gas consumption during the cold snap has been more than off-set by the overall reductions in energy use, as a result of the help it has given its customers with energy efficiency measures.  It also believes the lower fuel bills are the result of its price cuts – including the 7% reduction in gas prices on 4 February this year.

Unveiling the analysis, British Gas’ Managing Director, Phil Bentley, said: “We are absolutely focussed on helping our customers use less energy and cut their fuel bills.  This extensive analysis of all our customers’ winter bills shows that, despite the increased gas use during the severe cold snap, we are succeeding in making overall reductions in the use of gas and electricity, against the reported trend in the UK.  This is great news for the environment and household budgets.”

Over the last year, British Gas customers have also benefited from some of the lowest energy prices in Britain.  The company cut prices twice last year, by 10% on gas and electricity, and was the only major energy supplier to make a gas price cut this winter with a further average 7% reduction in gas prices in February.  British Gas remains on average the cheapest major supplier of standard electricity and dual fuel throughout Britain.

The UK government has launched a new scheme to help homeowners contribute to the National Grid.

This is done via homeowners installing eco-freindly technology to create electricity, such as solar power or wind power. Any excess of energy that they produce but do not use will be sent to the National Grid, helping  people reduce their energy bills and lower their carbon footprint.

The scheme may potential save people up to £900 of their bills.

The feed in tariff  allows payments to be given for each unit of energy they produce aswell as giving an extra 3 pence per kilowat hour for every unit not consumed by the householder.

” Every dollar saved from our electric bill will be one more dollar used to help our units perform more efficiently,” said Lt. Cmdr. Cesar Acosta, commanding officer of Civil Engineering Unit, Honolulu.

The two methodologies of acheiving energy reduction are:

• Using newer technology that would reduce rates on consumption
• Educating staff on how to reduce their energy output

Common tactics for energy reduction were: using fluorescent and light emitting diode (led) instead of high pressure sodium lighting which consumes more power and urinals that require 88% less water and growing plants that do not require irrigation system that usings much water and is expensive to run.

“The team’s accomplishments in the past year and a half saved the Coast Guard an annual recurring savings of over $120,000,” said Lt. Ryan Murphy, an industrial manager and a team member. “In one of the larger lighting retrofit projects, the team focused on exterior lighting and was able to reduce the electrical load of the entire base by 80 percent through high efficiency lighting retrofits and delamping areas with too much streetlight. This project alone saved the Coast Guard $40,000 a year in electricity (costs).”

The Carbon Trust has recently announced that their scheme of helping small and medium-sized reduced their energy output has broken the £60m mark in loans given out. 1,847 businesses have benifited so far from the loans given out. These 1,847 businesses will have benifited from financial and consultancy help that would of helped improve the enrgy effceincy of their business. The Carbon Trust  claim so far that they have reduced the energy bills of these companies by £20m so far. Leaving a deduction of 130,000 tonnes of carbon being entered annually into the atmosphere.

The scheme, which provides loans worth between £3,000 and £500,000 to a wide range of energy-saving projects such as LED lighting installations and insulation rollouts, was hailed as a success by entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis.

“I’ve been saying it for a year now: helping firms buy the latest kit, so they can save on energy, while making themselves more competitive for future recovery, and cutting carbon emissions – it’s a no-brainer,” he said. “The fantastic thing about the Big Business Refit is that during some really tough times, it has provided SMEs with access to interest-free capital, giving thousands of businesses the confidence to keep going.”

The update came as the Carbon Trust released the results of a survey of about 400 senior finance executives, which found support for energy efficiency investment is rising. The poll revealed that four out of five finance directors believe investments in energy efficient equipment helps give their company a competitive advantage, while only six per cent said they are avoiding investment at all costs until the economic climate improves.

The picture contrasts sharply with similar research undertaken last autumn, which found that more than half of procurement decision-makers at smaller businesses planned to “make do and mend” with old equipment rather than replacing it.

“The significant increase in the uptake of our interest-free loans over the past financial year represents a win, win, win situation for SMEs,” said Hugh Jones, director of solutions at the Carbon Trust. “More than 1,800 firms have slashed their energy bills using interest-free cash to fund investments; plus more than 750 equipment suppliers have benefitted from increased sales generated by the support. And finally, it has provided a boost to cutting the UK’s carbon emissions.”

125,000 vouchers had been given out, the full quota allowed under the scheme. The cost of the scheme so far has been £50 million pounds.

Vary calls had been made to continue the scheme, but funds were not allocated to it by the most recent budget.

“The scheme was always intended to be a limited sum of money to kick start the industry and raise awareness of energy efficiency”, said a spokesman for scheme operator Energy Saving Trust. He added: “We understand some companies will continue to offer reductions on new boiler installation, after the closure of the scheme.”

“The scheme has also provided a much needed boost to England’s plumbers and boiler manufacturers, helping to sustain work for the 130,000 installers and up to 25 UK-based boiler manufacturers throughout the economic recovery” said Lord Hunt, Minister of Energy and climate change.