Get ready for the clocks changing

Adjust your heating controls and thermostats

Understanding your heating controls and timers is important if you want to keep your home cosy and your energy costs low. As the days get longer and warmer, there are easy things you can do to reduce your energy use. For example:

• setting your heating to come on a bit later and for less time
• turning down the radiator valves in rooms you’re not using
• turning down the thermostat by one degree – you might not notice the difference.

Some important things to bear in mind: 

• the average room takes about 30 minutes to heat up
• setting the thermostat higher does not heat the room quicker. 

If you’re interested in learning more, then look at our guide on thermostats and heating controls and if you have electric storage heating, read our advice on how to save energy when you’ve got electric storage heaters.

Make the most of longer days 

As mornings start getting noticeably lighter, opening your curtains in the morning can be a simple and effective way of using the sun’s natural warmth to help heat your home. 

If you have a washing line, you don’t need to wait until it’s sunny outside to use it! If the weather is dry and breezy, you can save on the cost of using a tumble dryer by drying your clothes outside. Just remember to hang up the clothes at the start of the day and take them in before the sun sets, and the dew starts to form. 

With the sun setting later, walking, wheeling or cycling after work can be a great way to decompress and get some fresh air. In addition to the benefits of staying active, spending this time outside of your home can help reduce your overall energy use in the evenings too. 
 

Do an energy spring clean 

There are plenty of ways to use that spring-cleaning spirit in your energy-saving efforts, and not all of them involve a duster or a mop. 

Take our home energy check to discover what improvements you could make to save energy and money. It’s free and easy to use, and you’ll get a report tailored to your home that has both long-term and quick improvements you can make. 

For any recommended improvements that might be more expensive or time consuming to install, our funding finder will tell you what financial support is available in your area to help cover the costs. 

If you already have the duster out, here are some tips to improve energy efficiency through cleaning: 

• Clean behind your fridge to remove any dust and grime, which makes the fridge work harder to keep your food cold.
• If any bulbs need changing, choosing an LED equivalent could help you reduce your energy bills.
• De-scale your kettle and deep clean your oven to make them work more effectively.
• Vacuum or dust your radiators - they may look clean on the outside, but a lot of dust hides behind the grills at the top and bottom. Getting rid of this dust will help your radiators heat up quicker. 

Enter our competition 

Finally, if you’re thinking of upgrading any of your current appliances, there’s still time to enter our competition to win £750 worth of energy saving gadgets for your home. 

Here are some of the energy saving appliances that last year’s winners chose: 

• dehumidifiers
• air fryers
• smart lighting
• slow cookers
• air purifiers
• smart TVs. 

Our competition closes on Monday 31 March at 11.59 pm - enter today and you could be one of the 10 winners chosen during the prize draw.