Making an effort to save energy around the home is not only great for the environment, it’s good for your bank balance too! Keeping your bills low might be a new year’s resolution, or you might just want to lower your carbon footprint. Whatever your reasons, these energy saving tips for 2020 will help you live an energy efficient lifestyle.
5 Top Tips for Energy Saving in 2020
Below are some fantastic tips to save energy in 2020 and beyond. Whether you make a few changes or follow every suggestion on the list, you’ll be making a difference to your yearly spend. Some tips involve spending a small amount of money to update appliances, but this will save money in the long-run.
1. Get Your Boiler Serviced
If you rent, your landlord is obligated to get your boiler serviced yearly. For home-owners, there is no responsibility to do this, so it can easily slip your mind. Servicing your boiler can help keep it running efficiently, meaning it uses less energy and costs less to run over the year. Heating & Plumbing World sells all sorts of boiler spares (among many other things) which will help keep your boiler ticking over a bit longer.
2. Switch to Energy Saving/Low Energy Bulbs
It might seem like an obvious tip, but it’s surprising how many households are yet to make the switch. Check your light fittings are suitable for lower energy bulbs. Halogen lighting famously uses around twenty-times more electricity than LED bulbs, but not all light fitting allows them to be interchangeable. Although altering your light fitting may seem like an expense, it will save energy well into the future.
3. Turn Off Anything You’re Not Using
This goes for lights, microwaves, games consoles and the TV. Even the standby won’t cut it, switching TVs off instead of using standby can save around £30 a year! Going around your house, turning things off and unplugging things you’ve finished using will save more energy in 2020 than you realise! Even if your appliances are very energy efficient, not giving them power will really help save fuel.
4. Update Appliances
It might take a few years to update the necessary appliances around your home, but anything that wasn’t made recently might be eating up lots of energy. Some of the main offenders are old washing machines, dryers and fridges. Replacing them all at once will be expensive, especially if they’re still in good working order. Instead, try to save up and replace these items one at a time, starting with the oldest first. When looking for new appliances, always buy the ones with the energy rating ‘A’ to get the most efficient option each time.
5. Use Only What You Need
Only using what you need can be applied all over the home – from only filling the kettle with the amount of water that you’ll need, to only running the washing machine when you’ve got a full load. Careless use of energy will soon rack up those bills and waste a lot of electricity that could otherwise be saved. If you get into the habit of asking yourself if you’re only doing what you need, you’ll find that conserving energy will soon come as second nature.