Reducing energy costs

• Turning down your thermostat by one degree could reduce carbon emissions and cut your fuel bills by up to 10%. You could save around £40 per year.
• Wash more clothes at 30°C - turning down the wash cycle from 40°C to 30°C will use 40% less electricity, while moving from a 60°C to 40°C wash cycle will use 30% less. Some washing powder manufacturers now claim their product is effective at 15°C.
• Wash more clothes on a "fast" wash if they aren’t  heavily soiled, and try combining colours with whites to reduce the number of loads: modern fabrics are colour fast and at low temperatures there is little risk of shrinkage.
• Don’t use the radiator to dry wet laundry – it lowers the room temperature and makes your boiler work harder.
• When you boil a kettle, only put in as much water as you need.
• Allow cooked food to cool before you put it in the fridge or freezer.
• Buy food locally – or grow your own!
• Get energy efficient bulbs - if every home in the UK installed just three energy efficient light bulbs, we would save enough energy to power all our street lights. One bulb can save you £100 during its lifetime and lasts 12 times longer than ordinary light bulbs.
• Stop the stand-by - turn TVs, stereos, mobile phone chargers and other gadgets off at the switch or the plug when you’re not using them. £700 million worth of energy is wasted in the UK every year by people leaving appliances on standby.
• Turn off the air conditioning - open a window instead. Use rechargeable batteries - rechargeable batteries cost about twice as much as conventional ones but can be used hundreds of times therefore being more cost effective.
• De-scale your kettle.
• When cooking - use lids on pans.
• Buy energy efficient appliances - look out for the A to G rating. A is best.
• Invest in a washing line or clothes horse. If you need to use a tumble dryer, make sure the laundry is well spun and the dryer is free of lint.
• Clean the back of your fridge – dusty coils increase energy consumption by up to 30%.
• Ban blinds – heavy curtains keep in more heat in winter, but don’t let them fall over the top of a radiator, the heat will just shoot out the window.
• Defrost your freezer – and if you’re going to run a freezer make sure it’s full, it keeps the ambient temperature down.
• Get insulated - more than half the heat lost in your home escapes through the walls and roof. Cavity wall insulation costs about £260, can take a couple of hours to install, and could save you £160 a year on fuel bills. Grants could be available.

If every household installed just one energy saving light bulb, the electricity saved in a year could power the Blackpool Illuminations for nearly 900 years.