Using your heating and appliances more efficiently will make a big difference to your energy costs. Follow our 10 tips to use less and pay less, while making your home more comfortable.
Cheap energy deals are hard to come by while energy prices are limited by Ofgem's price cap. But the steps you take to be more efficient can still make a difference.
That's because energy unit rates – how much you pay for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of gas or electricity you use – are capped, rather than your total bill. So the less energy you use, the less you'll pay.
Small habitual changes add up. And some of the tips below take just a few minutes to set up.
See all of our free cost of living advice and tips.
1. Use your appliances efficiently
Condenser tumble dryers and American-style fridge freezers are the priciest appliances to run.
Both cost over £120 per year in electricity on average, according to our testing.
Find out: how much your household appliances cost to run.
Changing how you use them will make a positive difference to your energy payments. Try these tips:
- Wash your clothes at a lower temperatureDoing your laundry at 30ºC (rather than 40ºC) cuts the cost by 38%, according to our tests.
- Wash bigger loads less often Over-washing can cause fading, shrinkage and mis-shaping, as well as cost you more in electricity.
- Load your dishwasher properly Run it only when full and stacked so that every item gets well cleaned (see the best way to load your dishwasher).
- Use eco settings Use this setting on any of your appliances that allow it.
- Fully turn off your wireless speaker or sound barThey're the most power-hungry gadgets in standby, costing around £6 per year (based on 20 standby hours per day).
- Dry laundry outside When you can.
- Tumble dry different fabrics separately They take different lengths of time to dry. Avoid drying single garments too.
- Wait for food to cool before freezing And defrost frozen food in the fridge.
- Keep appliances clean Regularly descaling your kettle, defrosting your freezer, cleaning your tumble dryer's lint filter and cleaning the coils at the back of your fridge helps them run as efficiently as possible.
Read more tips on how to be more energy efficient in the kitchen.
2. Add insulation wherever you can
Improving your insulation will have the most impact on your bills of any of our tips.
While you might not be turning on the heating during warmer months, you can get your home's insulation set up in time for cold weather.
Gas and electricity prices are predicted to drop slightly this autumn, but they will still be much higher than a couple of years ago.
Adding insulation can cost as little as £15 (that's for DIY fitting foam insulation around exposed hot water pipes). The more you add, the more you'll save.
Loft insulation is the cheapest and easiest way to boost your home's insulation credentials. If you have none to start with and add the recommended 270mm, you could save up to £130 per year in a three-bed semi. Plus you'll feel cosier too.
Once that's done, consider cavity wall insulation if your home is suitable. It's pricey – around £,1000 for a three-bedroom semi, according to the Energy Saving Trust – but a third of your heat is lost through your walls. For older homes, you'll need solid wall insulation instead.
Read our full loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and solid wall insulation guides to learn what you need, how much it costs and what you could save.
Find out more abouthow to make your home more energy efficient.
3. Improve your draught-proofing
Stopping heat from escaping through gaps around doors and windows could save you around £60 a year, according to Energy Saving Trust.
It can help make your home feel more cosy at lower temperatures, too.
Professional draught-proofing of your whole house costs around £225 for a typical household, but there are plenty of DIY draught-proofing jobs.
Start with these areas:
- WindowsUse draught-proofing strips around the frame. Brush strips work better for sash windows.
- DoorsUse draught-proofing strips around the edges and brush or hinged-flap draught excluders at the bottom.
- Chimney and fireplaceIf you don't use your fireplace, block the chimney with an inflatable pillow or fit a cap over the chimney pot. If you have an open chimney, this could save you £90 a year.
- Floorboards and skirtingFloorboards need to move, so use a flexible silicone-based filler in the gaps.
- Loft hatchesUse draught-proofing foam strips to keep heat in.
Just remember that you do need some ventilation in your home, so don't cover up holes that are supposed to be there, such as trickle vents in window frames.
Already repaired large draughty areas? See our guide to draught-proofing for tips on draughts from keyholes and letterboxes.
4. Review your energy bill for small savings
Most of us won't be able to save money by switching energy tariff or provider at the moment as suppliers aren't offering deals cheaper than the capped variable tariff.
But there are still things you can do to save.
If you get paper bills, ask your energy company to change to paperless ones and manage your account online instead. Some companies charge customers for paper billing.
Paying by direct debit is usually cheapest. But if your supplier wants to increase your direct debit by more than you'd expect, ask it to explain why. Over a year, your usage and payments should balance out.
If you've built up too much credit in your account, you can ask for it to be refunded or for your direct debits to be reduced while you work through it. We'd recommend you keep around two to three months' worth of payments in your account.
Sending your supplier regular meter readings will also keep your payments accurate and prevent estimated bills. If you have a smart meter, it should send your meter readings automatically.
Read more:Energy tariffs explained.
5. Use less hot water
Even if you only turn your heating on in winter, you use energy year-round to heat your water. So heating and using it wisely will impact your bills.
If you have a hot water tank (rather than a combi boiler), use your heating controls to turn your water heating on and off, so you only heat as much water as you'll need.
High-volume power showers can use more water in less than five minutes than running a bath, so fit an eco shower head. Your shower will still feel powerful, but it'll cut down on your hot water use.
Try using a shower timer to keep your shower to four minutes or less. This can save a typical household £95 a year on energy, according to the Energy Saving Trust. You'd also save another £60 on water, if you have a meter.
Avoid washing up under a free-running tap – wash up in the sink or a bowl instead. Also try not to leave the hot tap running for too long while you're rinsing items.
Fitting an aerator onto your kitchen tap will reduce the amount of hot water coming out. It could save you £30 a year.
Find out more about eco shower heads and other water-saving devices.
6. Don't forget to service your boiler and adjust its flow temperature
You may not be using your boiler efficiently – which will make your home more expensive to heat over winter.
While your boiler won't be doing as much hard work over the warmer months, it's a good idea to use the down-time for servicing and maintanance.
Upgrading an old G-rated gas boiler to a new A-rated condensing one with a programmer, room thermostat and thermostatic radiator valves could save you:
- £540 a year if you live in a typical three-bed semi-detached house.
- £840 a year if you lived in a detached house.
- £230 a year if you live in a mid-floor flat.
Savings are according to Energy Saving Trust.
Of course, you should only replace your boiler if it's old and faulty. Buying a new boiler can cost around £4,000, including installation and new radiator valves, so you need to weigh that up against any potential savings.
Find out more abouthow much a new boiler costs.
If your boiler is still working, there are still savings to be made. Start by booking a boiler service and asking your engineer to make sure it's running as efficiently as possible.
Adjusting your boiler's flow temperature
Lowering your combi boiler's flow temperature is quick and can lower your bills straight away. Condensing combi boilers tend to have heating flow temperatures set to 75-80°C, but many homes with one can be suitably warmed at 50-70°C.
You could save 6-8% on your gas bills by lowering a combi boiler's radiator flow to 50%, according to the Heating and Hotwater Industry Council (HHIC) in 2022.
If your boiler was installed after April 2005, it will be a condensing boiler.
The extent to which you can decrease your boiler’s heating flow temperature is highly individual. But lowering it means your boiler uses less gas and runs more efficiently. So you'll save money and your home will still be warm.
Start with a small change and see if you're comfortable before lowering it further.
The HHIC recommends that you adapt your boiler settings with the advice of a boiler engineer.
However, if you've made sure it's safe and you've checked your boiler's technical manual, you can adjust these settings yourself via your boiler controls.
The flow temperature for heating is generally symbolised by a little picture of a radiator, and for hot water, a picture of a tap. Up and down arrows will change the temperature settings.
Nesta has created an interactive boiler temperature tool to walk combi boiler owners through changing your heating's flow temperature settings.
Find out more about this one simple way to adjust your boiler to lower your heating bills.
7. Make use of heating controls
Use the warmer weather to update and get to grips with your heating controls so you're ready to heat your home efficiently next winter.
Heating controls enable you to:
- set your heating and hot water to turn on and off to suit you
- heat only the parts of your home that need it
- set different temperatures for different areas of your home
- keep your home at a temperature that’s comfortable, without wasting heat.
Installing a room thermostat, programmer or thermostatic radiator valves+ (and using them well) could save a typical household around £180 on energy bills each year, according to Energy Saving Trust.
It costs around £580 to install the lot in a typical semi-detached home and will take around three years to see savings.
If you already have a thermostat and programmer, installing thermostatic radiator valves could save £55 a year if you then use them well. Find our more about them below.
Try these tips to use heat as efficiently as possible:
- keep a gap between your radiators and furniture
- make sure curtains aren’t hanging in front of radiators
- remove radiator covers
- bleed your radiators to remove cold spots.
If you only have one thermostat for your home, turning it down by 1°C (and putting on a jumper) would save you around £145 a year, according to Energy Saving Trust.
For most people, the lowest comfortable temperature to set your heating at is somewhere between 18°C and 21°C.
Read more on how boiler controls can save you money.
Electric heaters
Electric heaters are best used sparingly. Electricity is much pricier than gas, so costs will quickly mount up. Plus our tests found that some heaters don't have very good thermostats so don't give you the room temperature you want.
On the whole, for short bursts you're better off heating yourself rather than the air – using extra clothes, hot water bottles and electric blankets and throws.
If you are using an electric heater, try using your smart meter monitor to compare how much it costs to run an electric heater compared with turning on your central heating.
Find out more about buying the best electric heater for your home.
8. Make the most of smart thermostats and smart tech
Smart thermostats let you operate your heating remotely via your mobile phone, tablet or computer. Some can also learn your routine or adjust your settings depending on the weather conditions.
Coupled with smart thermostatic radiator valves, you can control exactly which rooms are heated, and which aren't.
For example, you might want the radiator in your living room to turn on when you come home from work, your bedroom to stay cold until later in the evening, and your kitchen to warm up in the morning. Just make sure all the kit you buy is compatible with the rest so that you can use it most effectively.
Thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs)aren't all digital. Traditional ones allow you to turn down manually the radiators in rooms you're not using.
Whether a smart thermostat could save you money will depend on your lifestyle and how efficiently you control your heating already.
Find out how to buy the best smart thermostat.
Energy-saving apps
Some energy companies' customer apps give detailed information about your energy usage, particular if you have smart meters.
A smart meter shows you how much energy you’re using and how much it costs in near-real time. You can use this to work out where and when you can cut back on your use.
Smart thermostats, such as Hive or Nest, also come with apps, as does Samsung's SmartThings hub.
Apps such as the Energy Cost Calculator tell you exactly how much energy your products use. Enter the energy consumption of an appliance in kWh (this should be on its packaging or specs that you can find online), how many hours you run it for and how much your electricity costs per kWh. The app will give you a cost per usage by day, month or year, along with the CO2 emissions. It's available for iOS and Android.
Find out more abouthow to use tech to reduce your energy payments.
9. Make your next appliances energy efficient models
Buying a very cheap appliance can be a false economy if it ends up costing a fortune to run.
Choosing energy-efficient appliances can save you hundreds of pounds each year in running costs compared with the most power-guzzling products.
Here are the differences between the highest and lowest energy users in our tests:
- Fridge freezer (freestanding)£105 annual cost difference
- Tumble dryer (condenser)£80 annual cost difference
- Washing machine£73 annual cost difference
- Dishwasher (freestanding)£65 annual cost difference
These costs are based on the unit rates for the energy price cap between 1 July and 30 September 2023.
Running costs are now included in our appliance reviews. We test energy consumption in a way that reflects how you actually use appliances.
For example we test washing machines on the 40°C cottons program because that's most commonly used by Which? members (rather than the 60°C cottons program which makes up 60% of EU Energy Label tests).
Then we use the results of our energy tests to calculate how much each appliance will cost you to run. We update this every time the price of electricity and gas change.
Read more abouthow much appliances will cost to run from July 2023 and get tips on how to minimise your electricity spend.
10. Check your eligibility for energy efficiency grants or extra benefits
Energy schemes and grants can help pay your energy bills or support you with the costs of renewable heating. These include:
- Warm Home Discount – £150 (increased from £140 in October 2022) mainly to pensioners and those who get certain benefits
- Winter Fuel Payment – £100 – £300 per winter for those born before 26 September 1955
- Boiler Upgrade scheme – up to £6,000 to replace your current gas or oil heating with low-carbon heating
- The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme – help with insulation and energy-efficiency measures for those on low incomes. The Great British Insulation Scheme, announced in March 2023 is the next phase of ECO.
Find out what home energy grants you're eligible for.
