Five Tips for Saving Energy This Spring

Lowering the amount of energy we use around the house is good for both the planet and our wallets. But sometimes it’s easy to fall into bad habits (especially when we’ve been spending so much time at home during lockdown). 

A new season is a good opportunity to look afresh at our energy usage, and perhaps to introduce a few simple changes to lower the amount we consume day-to-day.

Here are our five tips for giving your energy habits a spring clean. 

Rethink your washing

Did you know that if you drop the washing machine to 30 degrees you’ll use around 40% less electricity over the course of a year compared to higher temperatures?

Plus, with warmer and (dare we say it) dryer days ahead, now’s also a good time to ask whether your clothes need to be tumble dried every time.

A tumble drier is one of the biggest energy-consumers of our household appliances, so if you reduce your reliance you could reduce your energy usage quite considerably. If you have a garden or some outside space, dry your washing outdoors. If you don’t have outdoor space, placing clothes near an open window works well too, as well as ensuring you keep everything separated to allow air circulation. 

Clean out the fridge

If you’re anything like us, it may well be that your fridge and freezer have filled up over the last few months with lockdown cooking experiments - jars of homemade pickles and frozen loaves of banana bread, anyone? 

As lockdown gradually lifts, take this opportunity to clear out your fridge and defrost your freezer. When ice builds up in the freezer it acts as an insulator, meaning that the freezer has to work longer and harder than it normally would to keep food frozen. Which? has a useful guide on how to do a quick defrost without making a mess or wasting food in the process. 

Ensure you’re properly insulated 

Even as the weather begins to get warmer, it’s really important to ensure that your home is insulated against heat loss.

It’s hardly the most glamorous job (as chief executive of Energy UK, Emma Pinchbeck, will testify!) but with a quarter of heat lost through the roof in an uninsulated home, it’s a really crucial one to get right. Insulating your loft, attic or roof is a simple way to reduce heat loss and reduce your heating bills in the process. Plus, according to the Energy Saving Trust loft insulation is effective for at least 40 years so should pay for itself many times over.

To find out more about the process of installing insulation, and to find an installer, read the full Energy Saving Trust guide here. 

Energy-saving lighting 

Thanks to British Summer Time we’re all appreciating a few more hours of daylight lately.

Make sure your energy bills see the benefit by making the most of that natural light; if you’re still working from home, set up your office by a window rather than relying on electric lighting. 

When you do switch on a light, make sure to remember to switch it off when you leave the room (an obvious one, but it pays off). Better yet, make sure you’re using energy saving light bulbs which require significantly less energy than normal bulbs. It's estimated that each bulb can save around 2,000 times its weight in carbon emissions during its lifespan.

Get smart

Have you had your smart meter installed yet? All gas and electricity suppliers are currently in the process of rolling out smart meters to their customers, and So Energy is no exception.

Smart meters are an innovative new way to measure the energy they use, and they send meter readings directly to your supplier so you no longer have to. This ensures you are billed accurately, bringing an end to estimated bills.

Smart meters don’t just save you time, they also help save energy. Smart meters come with in-home displays (IHDs) so that you can monitor your energy usage in real time, meaning you can see how much you’re spending and keep an eye on the appliances that use the most energy. Energy Saving Trust estimates that home energy usage drops by 5%-15% in the first year of using a smart meter in conjunction with an IHD. 

If you’d like to know more about the process of having a smart meter installed, we’ve compiled a list of FAQs here.  If you’re a So Energy customer and you don't have a smart meter, and would like to get one, please contact us via help@so.energy and we’ll be in touch.