Reduce your environmental impact and save on your family budget, says Energy Saving Trust’s Sarah Compo

With baby just arrived, now’s the perfect time to make small alterations to your family’s lifestyle – changes which can have a positive impact on the planet as well as your pocket. By simply following these low-cost energy-saving measures, you will see a great return on your investment, both financially and environmentally.

You could cut as much as £300 off your annual energy bill and reduce your household’s carbon dioxide emissions by around 1.5 tonnes.

Free home check
Contact your local Energy Saving Trust advice centre to check which grants and offers are available in your region and book in for a Home Energy Check. This will provide you with a free tailored report explaining how much energy and money your home could potentially save, and which measures you should prioritise. You can do a Home Energy Check at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/check or call your local Energy Saving Trust advice centre on 0800 512 012.

Switch light bulbs
Switching to energy-saving light bulbs is the easiest change you can make. They last around 10 times longer than ordinary light bulbs, and one bulb can save around £40 on electricity over its lifetime. Low-energy bulbs now come in all shapes for most styles of lamp fixtures and fittings – from halogens to dimmers. Download the Energy Saving Trust’s myth-busting lighting guide at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/lighting.

Eliminate draughts
The next big thing to tackle is eliminating draughty gaps in floorboards and skirting boards. Fill gaps using beading and sealant from your local DIY store. Once you start hunting for draughts, you may discover areas such as letterboxes and keyholes on the front door need to be covered.

Switch off standby
The One Click Technologies Intellipanel is an Energy Saving Trust Recommended remote control unit, allowing you to switch multiple devices off standby with one button. The average household wastes £33 each year by leaving appliances on standby, with UK households spending around eight per cent of their electricity bill on standby power. Across the UK this is equivalent to the annual output of two 700 MW power station. If everyone in the UK switched their appliances off and avoided standby we could save over £875 million a year and save the same amount of CO2 as taking 1 million cars off the road.

Hot water tank jacket
It’s worth insulating your hot water tank with a jacket – it only costs a few pounds and the energy saved means it will pay for itself within months. Fit a jacket at least 75mm (3”) thick and you could save around £35 a year. If every UK household that could fitted an adequate tank jacket, we’d save over £160 million of energy every year!

Get switched on
Switching to energy-saving bulbs is the easiest change to make and can save you around £40 per bulb.

Top up loft insulation
De-junking the loft and topping-up the loft insulation before winter arrives is another great idea. Loft insulation is one of the simplest ways of saving energy and reducing your heating bills. You can even do it yourself and in some cases there are grants available to help cover the cost.

Insulation acts like a blanket, trapping heat rising from the house below. Without it you could be paying an unnecessary £150 extra on your annual fuel bill.

Choose appliances wisely
Always look for the Energy Saving Trust Recommended (ESTR) logo. ESTR appliances are the most efficient in their category and could save you around £36 a year. Choosing an Energy Saving Trust Recommended inkjet printer over a non-Energy Saving Trust Recommended one could save you a quarter off the electricity you would normally use over a year. For more information, search the ESTR database at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/compare.

Keep in the heat
Cavity wall insulation is a fantastic way to significantly reduce the amount of energy you need to heat your home. Around 33 per cent of the heat lost in an uninsulated house is through the walls. Applying this to your home heating bills, a home with unfilled cavities could reduce heating costs by 15 per cent, which could mean a saving of around £115 on energy bills, simply by insulating. If every UK home that could filled their wall cavities, collectively we’d save about £700 million of energy a year.

Change the boiler
By law, new gas boilers in England and Wales must now be of the high efficiency condensing type, which can help you save up to a quarter on your heating bills and even more if you upgrade to modern controls as well. If everyone in the UK with gas, oil or LPG heating installed condensing boilers we would collectively save £1.3 billion on our yearly energy bills.

Keep warm
Insulating your home means keeping your house warmer for longer but also a saving of around £115 a year!

Understand your heating controls
Fitting the correct heating controls allows you to choose when the heating is on, how warm it is, and where you want the warmth, so make sure you fully understand all your home heating functions to use your energy effectively. For more advice on how to save on your home heating bills, download the Energy Saving Trust’s Hot Guide to Heating your Home Efficiently at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/heating 

• Sarah Compo is Information and Knowledge Manager at Energy Saving Trust and mum to Ali (both pictured).