Winter Tips To Keep Costs Down

As winter starts to creep up (although the last few days have been surprisingly mild…) keeping warm becomes a key focus for most of us. For some of you it may be time, if you haven’t already, to fetch out heaters and blankets that may have been stowed away in your cupboard, attic, garage or possibly even your self storage unit… 🙂

As it gets darker and colder, the most common way we tend to fend off the winter chills is by cranking up the heater, which is a great way to get you feeling all nice and warm and toasty. But the flip side to this is that it also unfortunately means we end up cranking up our electricity and gas costs as well.

Listed below are a few hints to keep the costs down and avoid breaking the bank when keeping warm this winter.

Control your heat
For heaters equipped with a thermostat, keeping it at 18-20C is the optimum for cost saving. Be careful you don’t overheat your home. Every degree above that you program your heater adds about 10 % to your heating costs.

Time it well
Use the timer function on you heater to only have the heater on when you need it. Set it to switch on 20 minutes before you wake up so the house is warm when you wake and then turn it off 20 minutes before you leave the house or go to bed, so the heat can dissipate while you get ready for bed.

Shower power
Hot water makes up roughly a third of the average household’s energy consumption. Try cutting down on your shower time. Using a timer can help with this, so to can getting a water-efficient shower head installed.

It’s curtains for you
Let in the sun during the day (particularly on north-facing windows) and close them at night to seal any draughts around windows or doors. This can make a huge impact when keeping the heat from escaping through glass panes. The same applies to doors – if you can close them off to keep in the heat.

There are plenty of other thrifty winter tips floating out there in the internets, but we hope these ones at least give you some idea of how easy it can be to save a few dollars.