Any Ideas How to Save on Home Bills?

Originally Posted by Ed

It would make much greater difference if you reduce the amount of energy you use.

Mrs and daughter claim they can't see unless every light is on, so when I get home the place looks like a cruise ship. So I turn them all off and then put on a tshirt and shorts to make the point that the house is like an oven.

Originally Posted by Stu

Do you live in my house? strange I haven't bumped into you more.

Ditto!

[Red ones]

Just looked at some old threads and stumbled on this one.

I am amused by the juxtaposition of these 2 comments!

Originally Posted by BigApe

During the colder months we have the gas central heating on tick over constantly. It is cheaper to keep the house at a constant temperature than switching it on and off.

Originally Posted by BigApe

Don't use the dishwasher, tumble drier or microwave. Big energy sapping tools. Save the washing up if you can, and do two lots in one go. This means that the water in the boiler only needs to heat up again once instead of twice.

It is cheaper to keep the house at a constant temperature, but not the boiler? Surely the heat loss increases the higher the maintained temperature, therefore, it pays to lower the temperature as much as possible, therefore, turn down the heating at night and when you are not there and heat only when you are there!

Originally Posted by alpinestarhero

Some energy saving lightbulbs would be a good idea, maybe in rooms you dont use lights so much?

And the big savings are in the rooms you use most! In our house it is the landing at the top of the stairs (on all night), the bed side lamps (in case they get left on when I fall asleep reading). Basically anywhere where the lighting is for task, rather than feature/decoration.

Originally Posted by Razor

Well I need people to keep on installing those expensive boilers to keep me in a job.

best thing i ever did.

sky tv £21 family package,
b band £19.99 8 meg + anytime phone calls and free line in december,
gas and electric 35 each p/m with southern electric (heating on morning and night) (combi boiler)
low energy bulbs or halogen spots on a transformer everywhere,
best thing i had done was cavity wall insulation,
4 bed semi detached.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

or halogen spots on a transformer everywhere,

Thought they were expensive to run

We've recently cut the sky options down. Luckily, they have reduced the cost even more, so down from £44 per month down to £17pm. I don't really miss out on any channels I like (most motorsports on Eurosport and Motors, not sky sports).

Cut down our life insurance. Being new buyers we were shafted into getting the full works. Should go down from £116pm to £12pm!!!!!!!

Also cut the Internet provider (8meg limited line) which was £18.99pm and got the sky no download limits 16mb line (im at 2.7-3.1 which is still 1meg per minute better than i was getting on the old system. Area line in is 3.5mb). Thats down to £10pm...

So sky+internet was nearly £65, now its down to just under £30pm.... And the connection is better, and wireless....

Insulated the loft, turn off all lights and switches when not being used (take off stand-by, it makes a difference).

Keeping the curtins closed when the heating is on saves a lot of heat escaping too, even if you have double glazing.

Only put the amount of water needed in the kettle, only do the washing once a week (on low temp), small things like that.

We've gone from paying out more than goes into the house account, to the exact opposite.

I'd get solar panels to heat the hot water and such if they wern't so rediculasly expensive to put in (yeah go save power, but we'll charge you the earth to do it....)

I will agree that keeping a house constently warm makes it cheaper overall that turning the heating off, letting it get cold, they turning it on and waiting a few hours for the overall hosue to warm up again.

OR

Do the cheaper way, and put a jumper on

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

b band £19.99 8 meg + anytime phone calls and free line in december,

Darren - who's that with? That's a very good deal. We have supanet at home and it's pants so I'm looking to change.

Other energy saving tip is to get rid of an expensive wife and daughter. My two leave ALL the lights on - I mean all - and the heating is on full blast even now. I am fed up with switching everything off. The TV is left on, as is the gas fire, we have metered water and they leave the tap running to clean their teeth... aaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh

[Stu]

Oh, I've left the TV on standby today :doh:

[G]

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

low energy bulbs or halogen spots on a transformer

When the missus an I moved into our new house we had a contemporary kitchen which cost a fortune but in all it has 11 halogen spots.

Are these actually economical then? I thought because of the heat and amount of light given off they were rubbish and was worried about the energy they were using.

On another note the rest of the house has energy bulbs which are AMAZING. They give off a really natural light and are twisted in a spiral so look cool. with them being twisted the way they are they have a massive surface area so light up almost instantly to a good level.

I'm currently looking for a small cottage in the middle of nowhere that i want to live in for a long time, then i can justify spending a fair bit on eco stuff.

Originally Posted by Ed

Darren - who's that with? That's a very good deal. We have supanet at home and it's pants so I'm looking to change.

Other energy saving tip is to get rid of an expensive wife and daughter. My two leave ALL the lights on - I mean all - and the heating is on full blast even now. I am fed up with switching everything off. The TV is left on, as is the gas fire, we have metered water and they leave the tap running to clean their teeth... aaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh

Put the bills in their names