With winter now in full swing many people will be cranking up the thermostat and spending a lot of money on heating bills, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There are numerous ways to make sure that your bills are as low as possible. In today’s post I would like to discuss some of those methods and to help save you some money on your heating this winter.
1. Comparison Sites
Comparison sites have become popular for a very good reason; they help you save money by allowing you to easily compare the different companies, what they have to offer and if it suits your living style. Sites like www.uswitch.com are very useful in helping to identify which are the most competitive suppliers for you in your area.
It’s always worth shopping around because the prices are constantly changing so just because you went with the cheapest last year doesn’t mean that you should stay with the same supplier because their prices may have increased.
2. Cash Back
Some companies offer incentives for using direct debit on both gas an electricity. Npower, for example, give a £100 cashback offer if you have their gas and electricity for 12 months and pay by direct debit. This makes sense because they have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to get people to pay their bills and for outstanding money, they are out of pocket. A direct debit helps to ensure they are getting paid on time each month.
3. Hot Water Heating
Most people have a hot water tank somewhere in their home, like in their loft. What usually happens is they will leave the hot water heating on for a certain number of hours in the day and then they have a reserve of available hot water to use as and when they need to.
The point here is to look out for when you switch the hot water heating on and off. Some energy suppliers offer a cheaper rate of electricity overnight so you can just have it set on the timer to come on for the cheaper time period and then switch off again when it’s more expensive.
Not all tariffs have the same kind of options so it’s worth looking at the details to see which is best. Also, not everyone has a hot water tank which stores the hot water, which brings me nicely onto my next topic…
4. Combi Boiler
A combi boiler is one in which you do not have a hot water tank so you heat the water as you use it. This is good for efficiency in one way because it means that you are not having to maintain a mass of hot water at a certain temperature for many hours of the day when you are not using it. However, as I stated in the point above heating costs for gas/electricity can be different at varying times of the day. Usually it’s more expensive in the day and cheaper overnight so this is where a combi boiler is not so good because you are going to be using it more likely in the morning and evenings and not in the early hours of the morning.
5. Energy Check
There is a website called www.energysavingtrust.org.uk which allows you to get a report on how efficient your home is and how much energy, both gas and electricity, you could be saving. It’s well worth a quick look to see if you can learn anything from it and save yourself a few pounds.
6. Insulation
Always look to improve the insulation in your home in order to prevent heat from escaping as you heat the home. It’s usually not very expensive and can save you a lot of money if your home is not very well insulated, and especially look for gaps around the doors which you can fill.
7. Halogen Heaters
Another option available to you is to get a halogen heater, which is what we review on this site. Halogen heaters are very useful if you want a quick blast of heat which is directed towards a person or just to heat a smaller area, like a small room or workshop. Check out the one we have reviewed which are categorised under small, medium, large and X-large.
Images courtesy of xedos4, John Kasawa and winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net