You probably have to spend some amount of money each fall and winter heating your home. DIY money-saving heating tips will show you how you can spend less this winter on your heating bills. Most of Europe sees significant energy use during the winter months, as the heating season is the longest in the year. From September to April, and sometimes longer, many European and U.K.residents must use some form of heating to keep their homes comfortable.
The cost of heating can quickly add up, and may end up costing you more than you would like to pay. Luckily, there are a variety of easy DIY steps you can take which will help you save money on heating costs this winter. Use these five simple DIY projects to save more than £200 each year.
In addition, make sure that you make the most of government initiatives to help you save money while making your home an eco friendly space. Check that your tradesman is a green deal provider and look into green deal programs for more ideas on saving money in your home.
This is a guest post by Liz Conaty.
You may also like to read: How to Draught-Proof Your Home and Protect Your Home in Cold Weather
DIY money-saving heating tips
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DIY Money-saving heating tips - 1: close closet/cupboard doors
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This seems simple and obvious, but it is surprising how many people don’t follow this simple rule when it comes to heating their homes. If your heating system has less surface area to heat, then your heating bills will go down. Just by closing closet doors each time you open them, you can save about £30 per year on heating costs. This tip only works for closets that do not have their own vent inside (which most closets do not have). You can also close the vents in unused rooms and close the doors to the unused rooms for even greater heating savings.
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DIY money-saving heating tips - 2: replace air filters
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Replacing your air filters is one simple way to save money on heating bills this winter. A single air filter costs less than £3, and can provide up to a £30 savings per year. Dirty air filters reduce the efficiency of your heating equipment, making it harder for the unit to warm your house. Replacing the filters opens the airflow in your home and maximizes the efficiency of the unit. Usually, it takes just a few minutes to switch out a dirty filter for a new one. You can also use reusable filters for greater long-term savings. Simply wash the filters ever one to three months.
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DIY money-saving heating tips - 3: insulate water pipes
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Water pipes can lose a significant amount of heat travelling from the water heater to the bathroom or kitchen. You can save money on heating energy by adding additional insulation to these pipes. Many hardware stores sell insulating pipe sleeves that are easy to slip over existing water pipes to provide additional insulation. Just adding this simple insulation to your pipes can help you save around £30 per year. Insulating all the water pipes in your house should cost less than £10.
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DIY money-saving heating tips - 4: run fans backwards
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Did you know that your ceiling fans have both summer and winter modes? Summer mode circulates the air in the room, while winter mode focuses the air from the top of the ceiling down to the ground. This is ideal for re-circulating warm air inside a room without using additional energy to make more heat through your home heating system. Switching your fans to winter mode can save up to £60 per year. Most fans have a small switch next to the motor that is easy to move from season to season.
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DIY money-saving heating tips - 5: install quilted/thermal curtains
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Windows are a large source of heat loss in any home. Cracks in windows and the poor insulating power of glass combines to lose a significant amount of heat from your home. You can prevent this loss by installing quilted curtains over your windows. You can make the curtains yourself, or purchase thick curtains from any curtain retailer. Using insulating curtains can save up to £60 per year on heating costs. Good quality double-glazing also works.
These simple DIY money-saving heating tips can save you hundreds of pounds each year on your heating costs without significant investment. For just a few dollars, you can save hundreds on the cost of heating your home from year to year.
This is a guest post by Liz Conaty, Liz is currently interested in conserving energy and alternative heating methods, Click here for more information.
Once again great post we really do overlook how much money we are wasting on things that we do not consider. I really did not know about running the fan backwards. That is one I will have to try for sure.
Want to say something about DIY money-saving heating tips – 3 this is really a an effective technique for reducing our homes electricity bills, insulation can make our homes warm in winters so we don’t have to use more heating electrical products and save money
I think that we should look in the circuit box for a GFCI circuit breaker and in bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms for GFCI outlets. Test and reset them. This may solve your problem. The visible results are amazing, and you can start with the most apparent issues, thereby getting the biggest bang for your buck.
Installing quilted and thermal curtains seems like the most easiest task when it comes to keeping the heating bills of the house low. This is because we all use curtains for windows and doors in our house. So this does not increase the efforts or make us do anything extra for keeping the house warm.
Twitter: HardworkinJudy
October 24, 2012 at 1:23 am #
I handle energy tips all day so can say truthfully that there is a lot of good information here.
Judy recommends you read..Mama on a mission
Hi Anne, great tips on saving money. I think we spend maximum on our electricity bills. I think following these simple steps, we can definitely save a lot of money and electricity. Like someone mentioned, these are simple steps that can make a big difference. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Hi Anne, Thanks for sharing this with us. I think the tips are most helpful and in addition to saving money, it can also save energy which will benefit not only us but the entire ecology. These are simple things and yet the difference they can make is enormous.
Hi Anne, I’d like to know more about quilted and thermal curtains and the difference between them (apart from their price). I have been trying to keep my windows and doors shut to reduce the heating bill. It has worked. Thanks for sharing this.
HI Megan, Quilted curtains, as far as I know (this is a guest post, and my personal choice would be thermal), quilted curtains are thick so they keep the heat in.
I also advice (in the article linked in this post) making sure your windows are all secure and double glazed. Thick curtains will prevent the heat passing through the glass and will obviously mean you’re using less energy. The coldest part of the room is usually the door or the window. Having thick (or quilted) curtains at your doors and windows keep your home warm and energy use down.
Thermal curtains are specially made. They’re not as thick as quilted curtains, but they have a protective backing, which means that heat cannot pass through them as it would through normal cloth. The backing isn’t plastic, but it feels somewhat like that - at least this is what mine feel like.
I can’t say which one is better because while I have used, thick, lined curtains, I haven’t exactly used quilted ones. My thick, lined curtains work great too.
I hope this has answered your question.
Hi Anne, I think the tips mentioned are fantastic. They are easy and simple to follow and they won’t just save your money but also energy. So it is a win-win for all. Thanks for sharing Liz’s post with us.
Hi Anne, thanks for sharing this post with us. Liz has rightly mentioned some of the more very effective methods. These tips are really simple and everyone already knows this. But we tend to overlook simple things more often. I guess, like Peter said, it is good to be reminded about it.
Thanks for stopping by, David. It’s definitely good to be reminded, especially when it comes to things that can save us some of our hard-earned cash.
Hi Anne, I think Liz’s tips on saving our money and saving energy are extremely helpful. I, myself have been using the tip of closing doors, windows and vents.It has made a lot of difference in my heating bills. As far as curtains are concerned, I use the regular ones even in winter but will definitely look into using quilted curtains. Thanks a ton for sharing. And thank Liz from us.
You can also buy thermal curtains here in the UK. They work well too. I like the idea of quilted curtains because they look a lot nicer, but if you want something else that works (which is much cheaper), I can also recommend thermal ones. I have some and they work pretty well.
Hey Liz, this post is a very useful one. I think we all want to save money spent on heating. The tips you mentioned are though very simple but somehow fails to stay back in our minds. Like Peter has already commented, you just gave us a reminder, thanks for the post.
Hi Anne, Great post. I read in one of the replies that you made that the tips are more US based. But I think most of them can be used in any part of the world to save energy. The tip about closing the doors, windows or vents to determine the area that needs to be heated is extremely useful as this takes up less power and hence helps you save money. Quilted curtains are also a very cheap option that you could use. As usual, your posts are very helpful and in this case easy on the ecology and the pocket.
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Thank you for your input, Thomas. It’s as always, much appreciated.
I think it is important that we remember these things. These are such small things that we often tend to overlook it. Yet these are the very causes of our heating bills shooting up. I guess even though the fan tip may not apply to countries, the tip on shutting your closet door and any other door or window is most helpful.
In these times, when we are hard-pressed on energy, we need to save every bit that we can. In using the above methods to save money on our heating bills, we can also save a lot of the energy that would have been otherwise wasted. Thanks for sharing this Anne. As always, your posts are most helpful.
It often happens that in our busy schedule we overlook the obvious, the same thing is what you are talking about in this post Anne. The tips you mentioned here are so common, we all know these but I am damn sure that none of us would have remembered to do these until now. I think we do need a reminder like this once in a while. Thanks for sharing or rather reminding.
HI Peter, thanks for stopping by. This was a guest post by Liz, Conaty. I think many of the tips are US based, but I think they can still make a difference generally speaking. You’re right, sometimes we do need reminders of things we already know.