I’ve recently spent a lot of time trying to work out how I can improve my home during the winter months. The heating bill was huge, and I know that there must be some easy ways to keep down the cost. I don’t want to spend a huge amount doing it though – I’m not going to go as far as installing a wind turbine or solar panel for example – but the insulation in my home is so poor that it shouldn’t be hard to dramatically reduce costs.
I don’t have attic insulation which is one thing I’m definitely going to be installing – not just because of the energy it’ll save in the house but also because I’ve heard all about frozen pipes and they’re not something I want! I’ve also been reading about heat trace products which apparently do a similar job but more directly (they heat the pipe itself rather than keeping the air around it warm) but I’m not sure whether that’ll be overkill (I’d be interested to hear whether anyone else has used a similar system).
The easiest way for me to reduce my energy bills is just to avoid putting the heating on so much. I think the family and I have become so used to a warm house that we tend to put the heating on too much rather than just put on a jumper or sweater. Obviously when it gets really cold during the worst months then the heating is important, but it doesn’t need to be on all the time.
The hardest issue is probably that it’s easy to forget how cold it gets while we’re in a warm summer. I’m definitely going to keep a promise to myself that I won’t forget this time though! I’ll probably come up with something fun to do with the money I’ll save to provide a bit more motivation.