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Once again, the energy crisis is upon us, just as the temperature began to plummet, too. With that, and a little Greta Thunberg on our shoulder telling us to save the planet, it’s easy to find yourself looking around your home and wondering what you can do to save energy – especially if you’re shivering under a duvet.
It turns out there are a few home improvement options that will allow you to save energy, in turn saving money, saving heat, and saving the planet. Read on for all the details.
Replace your boiler
Because boilers are very old pieces of machinery designed to last years, it’s likely that yours hasn’t been updated in even a decade. Homeowners and landlords install and then forget about them until they inevitably fail, landing them with the bill to replace them out of nowhere.
But in the meantime, boiler tech has been improving. The newest boilers are fitted with programmers, room thermostats, radiator controls and occasionally smart thermostats. Best of all, they are around 30% more efficient, which could save you about £300 a year on your energy bills. Besides it doesn’t have to break the bank with the government offering homeowners in England and Wales £5,000 to replace their gas boilers with low-carbon heat pumps from next April.
Reframe your windows
You would be shocked at the amount of heat that is escaping out of your windows – your closed windows! There are a lot of less costly ways to deal with this, like keeping a long set of sheer curtains closed, or investing in thermal curtains, or covering your windows with a film, but these are not the most effective option. Reframing your windows is a much more useful option, with companies like VEKA making sure your windows allow for no heating leakage. They offer the energy-saving window frames that won’t rot, peel, crack, or warp, whatever the weather.
You have the option of going for multiple chambers, steel reinforcement, and even triple glazing, which itself will keep heat locked in your home, as well as cold and noise out. It could save you as much as £110 a year to just double glaze your windows.
Install a Smart thermostat
No matter what boiler you have, installing a smart thermostat will allow you to monitor your usage and reduce your usage as you need to. They will allow you to only heat the rooms you are using and will also keep your rooms at a pre-set temperature, so that you don’t suddenly find yourself in a sauna you didn’t ask for.
The main perk of Smart thermostats is that you can control it from your phone, so if you are on your way home and not looking forward to entering a freezing house, you can set your thermostat and walk into a comfy cabin.
Smart thermostats can also learn how long it will take to heat your home and will learn when you need to use it. You can set timers for the heating from your phone without having to enter the back of the cupboard and you could find yourself saving around £75 a year in your energy bills.