Gadgets To Help Keep Your Energy Bills Down
With gas and electricity prices continuing to cause great concern, we’re all looking for ways to help keep those bills down. Happily, there are things we can do to help keep our energy bills in check – and be a bit more eco-friendly at the same time.
From smart devices to small and simple tech, help is out there in gadget form. And it doesn’t have to cost much to make changes that will save you money on your bills. Here’s our pick of the gadgets that will aid you in keeping your energy bills down.
LED light bulbs
We’ll start with one of the simplest things you can do to cut your energy bill. LED light bulbs use 85 per cent less energy than a standard light bulb – and when you think about how many lights you have in your home, and how often you turn them on during the winter months, switching all your light bulbs to LED ones can bring you quite a saving. These energy saving bulbs used to be expensive in comparison to standard bulbs, which might have put people off buying them. But now, the price of LED bulbs has come right down to around £2 each. When you consider the long term savings you’ll make, it’s worth the investment.
Smart thermostats
This device that controls your entire heating system can bring down your energy bills by 15 per cent. It works by connecting your heating system to a smart phone app, or just to the internet, so you can control your heating even when you’re not there. This means you can set your heating to come on before you get home, and you can control the temperature throughout the house. This very smart bit of kit even learns the habits of your house and adjusts your heating accordingly, like understanding when you’re home and when you’re not. There is an initial cost of around £100, but after just two years of usage it will have more than paid for itself.
Smart plugs
Using smart plugs are an effective way of curbing your energy usage. You simply fit the plug into the socket and sync the plug with the app on your phone, and this lets you turn it on or off no matter where you are. That’s super helpful as many ‘vampire appliances’ use electricity when they’re on standby, so being able to turn them fully on or off with a smart plug can help reduce electricity usage. For example, a Sky box costs around £73 a year if it’s left on standby or on. Plus, we’re all guilty of leaving plugs switched on when we shouldn’t. At around £30 each, there is an initial outlay to consider, but being able to switch off the power remotely, even on just a few devices, could soon add up.
Smart radiator thermostats
It’s important to be comfortable and keep warm in winter, even during an energy crisis, but we don’t need to heat every room in the house to stay cosy. A radiator thermostat is invaluable for setting the temperature of the individual radiators we use and turning off the ones we don’t need. Even better, a smart radiator thermostat – which fits onto the radiators themselves – lets you control the temperatures from your phone. You can adjust temps and turn radiators off remotely, all via the app. The app even tells you what your energy output is, and the temperature in your house, helping you decide where and when you need the heating on. A simple radiator thermostat is around £35, while a smart radiator thermostat is more pricey at £185 but something worth considering.
Energy saving kettles
Boiling your kettle is one of the most intense uses of energy in your house. If you’re guilty of over-filling your kettle when you only need to boil it for one cup or, even worse, re-boiling, then you really are over-using your energy. An energy saving kettle is a great way to help become more energy efficient. You can get smart kettles that allow you to adjust the temperature your water boils to and can also tell you when you’ve over filled the kettle – all of which is controlled remotely from an app on your phone. You can boil your kettle remotely so that it’s ready for exactly when you need it, meaning no need for re-boiling (or hanging around the kitchen for that annoying couple of minutes!). There’s a low-tech version too: you can buy a simple energy-saving kettle that shows you on a display what the temperature is, and how much water you need.
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