A recent report by Kingfisher found that out of 17,000 European home owners, their top home improvement priority was to make their home more energy efficient. The report also found that 64% feared rising energy prices and 74% were keen to improve their energy efficiency to help keep costs down.
Making your home more energy efficient is easy and can save you big bucks down the line. Invest in your home and make some simple energy efficient changes, then sit back and watch the savings come rolling in.
Insulate your roof
Did you know that a quarter of a home’s heat is lost through the roof? Make your home more energy efficient by insulating your loft, attic or flat roof to help reduce heat loss and reduce your heating bills. Insulating your loft is easy to do as long as it has no damp or condensation problems, and often you can do it yourself. However, before insulating your loft, keep in mind that whilst insulating between the floor joists of your loft will help to keep your home warner, it will make the roof above colder, meaning pipes and water tanks become more susceptible to freezing – make sure to insulate them too.
Replace old windows
Heat is often lost through the windows, which means an increase in your heating bills. But there are a number of things that can be done to help ensure your windows become more energy-efficient. Consider changing your windows to double or triple glazing, or secondary glazing. This helps to keep heat in, rather than letting it out; as an added bonus, your new energy-efficient windows will also help to keep out external noise.
Install solar panels
Solar panels use the sun’s energy to create electricity, converting the sunlight to help run household appliances – they work on cloudy days too. Solar panels are also great because they need little maintenance – they just need to be kept relatively clean (if tilted at 15 degrees they are often cleaned by rainfall) and out of the way of overshadowing trees; the panels should last at least 25 years. Whilst they do require an initial investment, you’ll quickly notice the reduction in your energy costs as you use the sun’s energy to power your home.
Consider smart meters
Smart meters help you to keep track of your energy use in your home, removing the need for meter readings. They work in the same way as traditional meters but allow you to see how much you’ve used and at what cost; this is great as it means you can then adapt your energy usage and cut down to help make financial savings. You can also receive real-time information about your energy use, so you can make better decisions about where to cut back.
Look at smart heating
Smart heating helps to give you greater control over your heating, wherever you are and at whatever time of day. There are a range of fantastic features with smart heating that will help enable you to be more energy efficient, including the ability to remotely turn your heating on and off and change the temperature, control the heating in different rooms and allow you to monitor your energy use. Turning down your heating by just 1 degree can cut your energy bills by up to 10%, so being more aware of your heating could help you make big savings.
Here at Acorn, we believe all home-owners should consider making energy efficient changes to help cut down on bills. We understand though that often to do this it means a small initial investment before the savings can be seen; that’s why we’re here to help. We can help you with a personal loan to help you invest in your home. Get in contact with us today at info@acorn.je or give us a call on 01534 618628