Energy Saving Tips

Condenser dryers are a boon. No vent kits to deal with. I don't get condensation from mine, but did from the tumble dryer, even with windows open and the vent hose in use. No messing about and I can just shut the door on it when it's finished. The SmartMeter doesn't register heavily when it's in use, either.

Has anybody had a recent boiler or insulation grant? Or even a Green Deal? It is all new this year and it would be interesting to know how people accessed these grants across the country?

There are a lot of mobile home sites in Devon. Apparently the local coucil targetted them deliberately at the time (about 2 years ago) under some sort of Government directive as mobile homes are often at the bottom of the pile when it comes to grants etc. So it was quite a good scheme
while it lasted.
This is a huge site with about 200 homes on it and only ten people were selected for help at that time. I was lucky enough to be one of them.
Talking of which, is there anyone else on Gransnet who lives in a mobile home or park home?

Another big energy company revealed its price rise today, with a fair bit of blustering about so called "green taxes".
For many years now the big energy companies have had an "obligation" to spend money on helping people who live in energy inefficient houses to save energy. Of course they hate this - they would, wouldn't they because it means the people who get the grants, subsidised boilers etc will be paying lower bills won't they. About half of "green levy" goes on just this - grants to people who need them. (Currently available from energy companies under the ECO scheme)
And the other half goes on supporting renewables - e.g. a secondary school I was involved in was helped to get a wood-chip fuelled heating boiler by EON. Also reducing their energy bills.
This is one of the few ways that the government are trying to reduce CO2 emissions and fossil fuel consumption by the UK - putting this obligation on energy companies.
The energy companies would like to wriggle out of their "obligation" - but we should not be tricked into thinking this is a good thing, by talk of "green taxes" - including by the PM.

I think we may have been targeted in this area by Green Deal bods. A chap knocked at the door a couple of days ago insisting he wasn't selling anything and that he was from the Government (Mmmm, really?). I didn't let him get any further as we're already cavity walled, double glazed, new boilered and insulated as far as we can be. (In fact we're having new replacement windows at the end of the month - not a good time) But I do wonder whether he was kosher.

A Green Deal salesperson should definitely not be saying they are "from the government". Neither should anyone promoting ECO grants - they are not "from the government" they are from energy companies or installation companies. ECO grants are not funded or underwritten by the government. ECO stands for Energy Company Obligation.
It is possible, I think, that some ECO funding schemes could be run by local councils etc, but never "from the government".

Useful consumer info from OFGEM
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/environmental-programmes/energy-companies-obligation-eco/information-domestic-consumers

And if you are concerned about your bills, or sales people, or want advice re grants call the helpline

Energy Saving Advice Service helpline call 0300 123 1234

Anyone who says they are 'from the government' is a crook.

It is the verbal equivalent of those emails purportedly from your bank that start 'Dear Customer'

Thanks Jess.

Fuel poverty - even in Milton Keynes, that has the most energy efficient housing stock in the country and very high employment there are still going to be 6,000 households in fuel poverty this winter. Sobering.
www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/campaign-to-help-6-000-city-households-in-fuel-poverty-1-5677808

i found these tips on energy saving very useful.I found condenser dryer very useful in winter.It is located in my bathroom.I consider them as a boonduring winter.

www.familyenergytips.com/general-category/5-space-heaters-compared/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqdxLt74uc
..I am serously thinking of trying this one in the kitchen to keep the dog warm!

Put it where the dog isn't likely to investigate it and knock it over!

Wonder if that would work as a greenhouse heater?

Would put it on the cooker. It reminds me of that way of cooking porridge using straw that was in a childrens book I had [always wanted to try it!]. Mind you, not needed now we have instant porridge. Always had fantasies about being self suffiicient which is daft as I love shopping, can't cook and kill anything I try to grow. Feel the cold quite badly and love watching the telly. Hannah Hauxwell I'm not . [loved that lady]

I would add a few thoughts to that list of do's and dont's.

If you can, do not make your house "open plan" with the stairs going out of the living space etc. It makes the home draughty. Hot air always rises so your living room heat goes straight up the stairs while the cold air up there falls down onto you.

Don't use those trendy chipboard radiator covers! I am sure they must soak up a lot of the valuable heat from your radiators.

Have thick curtains which cover the window reveal. Cold air falls downwards off the window even with good double glazing.

Don't get rid of a fire place in your living room. Then at least you can keep one room cosy with a fire of some sort in that room without having the full central heating on.

Door curtains! They keep the warmth in and the dark night out.

Good hot water bottles and an extra jumper.

One way we save electricity is using a Ramoska. It costs only 7p per hour to run as opposed to the 14p an hour the Energy Saving Trust says it cost to run the average oven.
So if I'm only cooking for 2 people it's ideal and though it is supposed to take a little longer than an oven, that has not been my experience. For example it took only 45 minutes to completely bake two potatoes. I don't use the recipe book that's available but simply adapt my own recipes. Almost any meal that can be cooked in a traditional oven can be cooked in one of these.
Great for camping too.

I use a halogen oven a lot especially when only two of us - similar I think to a ramoska but not nearly so expensive to buy - about £30.

Stansgran Replacing the boiler does not entail changing the piping and radiators. It will have no effect on the pipes laid under the concrete. They will remain in use as they are now. We replaced our boiler about 5 years ago. It was done in a day and just required taking one boiler off the wall and replacing it with another.

A friend of ours had a problem with getting insulation into a loft with a very low pitched roof. The solution was to insulate the ceiling beneath. It involves taking down the existing plasterboard ceiling, putting in sheets of insulating foam and then putting new plasterboard up.

Our kitchen is in a flat roofed extension that had no insulation at all. We did the same thing to that, took down the existing ceiling insulated the roof and then relined the ceiling. We have a very long narrow kitchen, about 25ft x 8ft and the work took about three days.

We bought a combined microwave and convection oven which means that we rarely use the full sized oven. Much more economical because you are heating only a small volume.
Agree with most of your tips nellie but i don't think the chipboard shelves make much difference. Once warmed up they won't carry on absorbing heat any more than your furniture does.
hmm fireplace - certainly a lot of heat goes up a chimney if you have a fire/ If you are using central heating and don't have a lit fire, warm air is escaping up the chimney. Fires of course feel nice an cosy but whether they are economical or not depends on many factors such as cost of fuel, size of room and what you want to achieve.

An open fireplace wastes a lot of heat as so much heat from the room disappears up the chimney when there is no fire and as little as 25% of the heat from a fire actually passes into the room. The remaining 75% goes up the chimney. However a coal or wood burning stove, or even a gas stove or fire where a flue goes up the chimney directly from the fire and the chimney is otherwise sealed off at room level, is about 85% efficient and very little heat is lost up the chimney when not in use.

JessM I would have thought that they insulated the heat inside the casing rather than letting it out into the room to keep the occupants warm.

Maybe it means that the radiators stay warmer but the occupants shiver.

Like someone standing right in front of the coal fire thus blocking heat from the rest of the family who are huddling around the flames, getting blotchy legs and freezing cold backs. TGF central heating.

Flickety I have a modern gas fire which does blast the heat into the room. Its more efficient than a coal fire ever was.

An enclosed stove gets hot itself and radiates heat into the room.

A gas fire is 70 - 80 per cent efficient, a coal fire as little as 25 - 30% efficient.

A radiator shelf has very little effect on the efficiency of a radiator because not only is there usually a gap between the radiator and the shelf so heat rises up and then diffuses into the room that way, but a radiator normally has three other sides where heat from the back can diffuse into the room. Not to mention the large flat area of the radiator, where the warm water giving the heat circulates and radiates heat directly into the room.

To use your analogy of the coal fire and the person hogging it. If someone or something is blocking the front of a radiator anyone standing in front of that person will not feel the heat but in both case's stand to the side of the blockage and you once again feel the heat. In both cases the warm air will be infiltrating and circulating into the room.

I have radiator shelves over every radiator under a window so that the heat is directed into the room and so that at night I can tuck the curtains away so that heat does not go up between curtain and window.

I have a modern house with the staircase in the sitting room going upstairs and yes, taking the heat up also. It was what that I could afford at the time and I have learned to live with it.