Tips for improving your home’s energy efficiency – E/The Environmental Magazine

There has never been so much need to improve the energy efficiency in our homes. The climate crisis grows more urgent and serious with every passing day, of course, so reducing our impact on the environment by reducing consumption of energy is an imperative for all of us.

It’s also true that bills are set to rise even further over the coming months as the UK’s cost-of-living crisis deepens. Households all over the country will be desperate to make any savings that they can, so even a short-term expense to improve your systems may make the longer-term reductions worth it.

What can you do?

There are several changes that you could look into making at home to improve efficiency, including but not limited to:

• Install double glazing – If you don’t already have double-glazed windows, this is definitely worth considering. Reinforcing your windows this way reduces the amount of heat that is lost through them, which is estimated to save you £195 per year as well as offering a 330kg/year reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Many prospective home buyers may already expect double glazing as standard, as well, so it might be a good choice for the long-term value of your property.
• Replace an inefficient boiler – If you’ve historically had trouble with the heating around your house or experience a sudden boiler failure during the winter, it is likely worthwhile to replace it with a newer, more energy-efficient model. This is typically a larger expense for which you would prefer to plan and budget in advance but, if an emergency happens, waiting can be dangerous so options such as bad-credit loans could be worth considering to make sure that you can keep warm.
• Switch to more efficient lightbulbs – This one is an easy change. Next time that you need to change bulbs, opt for something that needs less energy to give off the same amount of brightness. The most efficient bulbs on the market are light-emitting diodes (LEDs), so be on the lookout for these.
• Install solar panels – Perhaps the most obvious way to reduce the amount that you spend on energy is by generating your own at home. The sun is a renewable source of energy that’s friendly to the planet so installing panels to capture that energy can make you less reliant on external bills for electricity.

Will it be expensive?

Most of these options involve some level of upfront cost in order to save more money over the long term, and the amount of investment involved can be high depending on the scale of work required. In these tough times, that can be a difficult commitment so it’s important to budget around the options available to you before going ahead with plans. That said, the savings on both energy and money are likely to be worth it before too long.

Original Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiRmh0dHBzOi8vZW1hZ2F6aW5lLmNvbS90aXBzLWZvci1pbXByb3ZpbmcteW91ci1ob21lcy1lbmVyZ3ktZWZmaWNpZW5jeS_SAQA?oc=5