Savvy saving

We hear from our local expert, Matt Todd

I hope you have all had a cracking Christmas, enjoying quality time with your families and friends (or quietly gnashing your teeth as the in-laws eat the last of the mince pies and help themselves to another round of festive cheer!) Whatever the holidays have brought you it’s time to look ahead to a New Year and what it might bring.

Now I’m not really one for new year’s resolutions but I’m guessing that, like me, you’re probably thinking that you had better do something this year about the amount you spend on energy to heat and light your home. It seems as though the energy suppliers themselves have got it all sewn up so that we can’t even switch to make savings so what do we do? Well we can all try and use a bit less I suppose but doesn’t that mean a miserable existence with dim lighting and cold rooms; not necessarily because there are some great new lighting and heating systems that are way more efficient than their outdated counterparts?

For example, switching to the latest LED lighting will potentially save you a heap of cash over a year – they use just 10% of the energy to produce the equivalent light so every day you only pay 10% of the electricity costs you would have done with your old light bulbs. They will cost you more to put in than replacing ordinary light bulbs but the savings made will result in a payback period you can measure in days.

There are also savings to be made on heating your home either by the use of modern smart heaters or smart thermostats (think Nest or Hive) with gas or oil boilers. If you have panel heaters or storage heaters there are modern solutions to save you money every day.

Finally, did you know that there is a whole crop of modern appliances which will save you a fortune compared to outdated older models? A recent example I gave a customer, showed just how huge the savings could be. They wanted to buy a new tumble dryer and their current one was a vented model. I was able to show them that by spending an extra £119 on a heat pump condensing machine (£260 vs £379) they would save £422 a year if they used it once a day or, looking at it another way, the modern heat pump dryer would pay for the difference in buying price in just over three months.

I hope some of the above information helps you to save a bit of money this year. If you would like to discuss any of these ideas please pop into one of our stores or give us a call on 01904 62876. Happy New Year!