Making your house more energy-efficient can help to reduce your energy bills. There are lots of ways like insulation, solar panels, draught exclusion, double glazing – the list goes on! But what are the most cost-effective energy efficiency measures to reduce your energy bills and why is it something to consider? Sit back and read on…
It’s all well and good investing money into energy-saving measures at home but is it actually saving you money in the long term? Are you moving house or having to replace the measure before you see the financial benefit? There are some cases when you could argue that particular energy efficiency measures aren’t worth the investment. This is because the cost of the measure when comparing it to the payback period (measured by the cost of energy you would be saving per year) is rather long.
Now, we realise this is quite a controversial topic and obviously it’s not all about the money. In no way shape or form are we suggesting you shouldn’t do everything you can to make your house more energy efficient because by doing so, you are reducing your carbon output which of course is extremely beneficial for the environment – a consideration we are all becoming more conscious of when decision making. It’s a topic we are definitely passionate about, as you will have seen on our website, so we want to be clear that we are not trying to discount the environment AT ALL when looking at energy-saving measures for your home.
But, here’s the key thing; energy efficiency measures are about doing what you can for the environment whilst ensuring you can implement improvements in your home that are going to give you a good return on investment. Spending efficiency and making investments that will save you money, in the long run, are really important personal factors for each of us to consider. At the end of the day, we all want to do our bit both for the environment and our purse strings!
To help you work out the most cost-effective energy efficiency measures for your home, we’ve made an easy to understand table which breaks down lots of different energy-saving measures and the time it takes to pay them back.
*fluctuation due to varying weather and daylight hours across the UK
Figures taken from Energy Savings Trust, based on the average UK semi-detached house with gas heating. Gas prices based on figures from May 2020. These measures do not include potential income from the Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI).
As you’ll see from the table, there are quite a few energy efficiency methods, like double glazing, that will take a while to see the cost-benefit. It is also worth bearing in mind that these figures don’t include maintenance costs. For example, solar panels will last about 25 years but usually will need the inverter replaced at some point 
during this time which costs around £800.
So, is it worth getting double glazing or solar panels if you aren’t planning to stay in your home long term? Perhaps not. But is it worth installing them if you can afford to purely for the environmental benefits? Absolutely because it will reduce your carbon output significantly.
If you are wanting to make small, affordable changes that will make your home more energy efficient then we have some great options like our Chimney Sheep® draught excluder, our other draught exclusion methods and our insulation.
It is worth noting that the chimney draught excluder figure used by the Energy Savings Trust is an average figure, but a Chimney Sheep® can actually save you on average £50 per year per chimney, as shown through this study done by the University of Liverpool! You can find out exactly how much your house would save by using our savings calculator.
There is of course the new government Green Home Grant which could potentially help you implement some of the energy efficiency measures we’ve mentioned above. If you want to find out more about how it could help you make your home more energy-efficient, then click here.
We hope this has helped you choose ways to make your house more energy efficient! We’d love to hear the measures you’ve made so contact us to let us know!
