Ultimate Guide: Improving your home's energy efficiency

Post written by Sarah Nicholas (Old School Scotland)

With winter well on its way and more of us spending more time at home than ever before, keeping the bills down is on all of our minds. Improving the energy efficiency of your home can result in long term savings, as well as minimising your environmental impact. So whether it’s upgrading your windows, improving your heating controls or switching appliances, energy efficiency can be a win for the purse and the planet!

Where to find energy efficiency calculators

The first step to making energy efficiency improvements is to identify where can these be made. The most reliable energy efficiency calculation is your home’s Energy Performance Certificate (also known as an EPC). If you’ve built, bought or rented your home within the last 10 years, then you can find your home’s EPC online for free. This report includes your property’s current energy efficiency rating (G is lowest and A is highest) and recommendations on where to make improvements.

There are also lots of online calculators but be warned – most are trying to sell you something from your results! Government-backed ones not only give impartial advice, but also flag what funding might be available. The UK’s Simple Energy Advice and Scotland’s Home Energy Check are useful starting points.

How to improve your energy efficiency rating

How you heat your home and keep it warm are normally where the biggest improvements to your energy efficiency rating can be made. This could include switching to smart heating controls or draught-proofing your doors, windows and chimneys.

Heating and insulation

• Improving your home’s insulation can make a huge difference to bills and heating efficiency, so it’s always worth considering this first. Whether it’s under the floors, cavity wall, loft or even just your pipes and hot water tank.

• Old heating systems tend not to be very efficient. If you are looking to upgrade, it’s worth considering a renewable heating system – these massively improve EPC ratings and often have government funding to help with installation costs. You might also want to look at heat pumps for your home, too (see our post: Are heat pumps worth it?)

• If you are tied to the old radiators that you have, you can ‘upgrade’ them by installing thermostatic radiator (if you don’t already have them). They usually have numbers on them to allow you to adjust them based on the desired temperature. The ones we installed in our master bedroom are a bit fancier and good looking (see below)!

THERMOSTATIC RADIATOR VALVES REGULATED THE TEMPERATURE IN A ROOM

Lighting and light bulbs to improve energy efficiency

Changing all your lightbulbs to LEDs can save around £40 a year. You can now get LED bulbs to suit most fittings, and different brightness and colours to suit all situations. Warmth is measured in kelvins – 4000-5000k is ‘daylight’, anything lower than this is a warm white and anything higher is a cool white.

If you are at renovation stage, you can also consider how to maximise natural light for ultimate efficiency in your designs and layout planning – having a desk near a window means you don’t need the lights on all day when working from home, for example.

Energy efficient grants

In England, homeowners and landlords can get up to £5,000 Green Home Grant vouchers (or £10,000 if eligible). These are only available until the end of March 2021 and registered tradespeople are likely to be very busy, so get quotes in ASAP!

In Scotland, there are interest-free loans as well as grants through area-based schemes and Warmer Homes Scotland. You can request a call back via the Home Energy Scotland website.

In Wales, you can contact Nest for advice and to see if you are eligible for free home energy efficiency improvements.

Energy efficient windows

Windows are now rated on energy efficiency – C rated is the minimum for building regs, but go as close to A++ as possible for maximum heat retention. If you have a period property with sash windows, you may want to consider draught excluders or secondary glazing instead of replacing the windows completely (especially in a listed building or conservation area).

Energy efficiency appliances: what to look for

If you have a smart meter, you can use it to see which appliances are using the most energy and target these for the biggest savings. If you don’t have a smart meter, you can get in touch with your energy provider to get one installed for free – some companies will also offer an energy efficiency check of your property at the same time.

When it comes to buying a new appliance, first decide what size you need and then look out for the energy rating label. Sust-it has a handy sortable ranking for all sorts of appliances to help you chose.

But remember - it’s often HOW we use our appliances that makes the biggest difference to their efficiency!

Washing machines with energy efficiency in mind

Always try to wait until you have enough laundry to run a full load and use low temperatures to maximise efficiency. Choosing an A+++ washing machine over an A+ one could save you around £65 over its lifetime.*

Is there an energy efficient tumble dryer?

Drying clothes outdoors on a washing line or indoors on a rack costs nothing and uses no energy, but if you need a tumble dryer, choosing one with an A+++ energy label over an A-rated one could save you around £370 over its lifetime.*

Some tumble dryers have sensors that stop once your laundry is dry enough, saving energy from over-drying. Electric heat pump tumble dryers are more efficient as they recycle the heat from the ventilation tube. Gas tumble dryers can also be more efficient, but more expensive to install.

Buying an energy efficient kettle (spoiler: it doesn’t exist)

Energy is measured in units based on what it takes to raise the temperature of water. This means that to get a litre of water to boil will always take the same amount of energy, fancy kettle or not!

So the best way to make your tea-making more efficient is to only boil the amount of water that you need. This is why boiling water taps are considered more efficient (but expensive to install and run) – the big secret is that you can get the same efficiency by not filling your kettle to the brim every time.

IMAGE: ENERGY SAVING TRUST

So we hope that’s given you some ideas – big and small – for how to improve energy efficiency in your home.

Do let us know once you’ve sealed that draughty window, switched on your LED light by the sofa and boiled yourself a cuppa (and no more!) to curl up and enjoy your cosy home this winter.

*All figures from Energy Saving Trust