Energy saving tips: How to save electricity and lower your energy bills

Key takeaway

Short on time? If you want to know how to save energy right away, these five simple habits deliver the biggest impact on your bills:

• Lower your boiler flow temperature — If you have a combi boiler, turning your boiler flow temperature down to 60°c could save the average household around £65 a year.

• Nudge the thermostat down — Turning your room thermostat down by just 1°C can save around £120 a year.

• Wash at 30 instead of 40 degrees — Washing clothes at 30°C instead of 40°C cuts energy use by up to 40% per wash

• Slay your vampire devices — Turning TVs or consoles off at the wall plug saves the average household around £45 annually.

• Bleed cold radiators  — Bleeding your radiators can improve energy efficiency by up to 15%.

• Block chilly draughts — Simple DIY draught-proofing around doors, floors, and windows stops heat escaping, saving you around £55 a year.

How to save energy on heating

Heating and hot water make up the biggest slice of your energy bills, but keeping warm when it's chilly outside doesn't mean you have to burn through cash. With a few quick adjustments, you can keep your home warm and cosy while cutting down your gas usage. Here's how to use central heating economically without freezing:

1. Lower your combi boiler flow temperature

If you've got a combi boiler, there's a good chance it's set to send water to your radiators at 70-80°C. That's much hotter than it needs to be.

By turning your combi boiler flow temperature down to 60°C, your boiler can work in its super-efficient condensing mode. This simple tweak could save the average household around £65 a year, according to Nesta's Money Saving Boiler Challenge. Your house won't feel any colder; your radiators will just feel slightly cooler to touch and take a few extra minutes to warm up.

Not sure what boiler you've got? Read our guide on what a combi boiler is and how it works to get to know your heating system better.

2. Nudge your thermostat down by 1°C

It's easy to crank up the thermostat when the temperature drops, but holding back a bit makes a huge difference. Turning your room thermostat down by just 1°C, say from 21°C to 20°C, can save around £120 a year.

You'll barely notice a one-degree drop in warmth, but your energy bill will certainly show it. However, it’s important not to lower the thermostat too much. The World Health Organisation says that 18 degrees is warm enough for healthy adults, with higher temperatures needed for children, older adults, and vulnerable people.

If you're wondering what dial setting works best for healthy comfort, take a look at our quick guide on what temperature your house should be.

3. Bleed cold radiators and manage radiator valves

Are your radiators warm at the bottom but chilly at the top? That usually means air is trapped inside, stopping hot water from circulating properly. Your boiler has to work overtime to fill the gap, wasting gas and cash in the process.

Grabbing a radiator key and bleeding your radiators lets trapped air out so heat flows freely again. Fixing this can improve your heating efficiency by up to 15%.

While you're checking your radiators, take a look at their thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs). Turning the dials down in spare rooms or empty spaces means you aren't paying to heat rooms that nobody is using.

4. Turn off pre-heat and make the most of smart controls

Lots of modern combi boilers have a 'pre-heat' function that keeps hot water sitting inside the boiler warm all day. While it gives you hot water a few seconds faster at the tap, it wastes fuel heating water when nobody’s home. Checking your boiler manual and turning pre-heat off is an easy win for your wallet that you’ll likely never even notice day to day.

If you want even tighter control over your heating schedule, consider installing smart thermostats. These make setting timers and tweaking room temperatures from your phone a breeze.

5. Block chilly draughts to keep heat inside

There's no point paying to heat your rooms if all that warm air slips straight out of the building. Stopping unwanted draughts around doors, windows, keyholes, and floorboards stops cold air getting in and keeps the warmth you've paid for where it belongs.

Getting professional draught-proofing can save around £55 a year, and doing it yourself can help you keep the expenses down.

If you're looking into bigger home improvements, check out our guide to home insulation, or see if you can get help covering costs through the government's Great British Insulation Scheme.

How to save energy on electricity around the home

From washing machines and tumble dryers to games consoles and laptops, our homes run on electricity. But figuring out how to save electricity doesn't mean giving up your favourite gadgets or living by candlelight.

A few clever habits and small kitchen swaps can make a big dent in your monthly power usage. Here’s how to cut down on electricity without hassle.

What do your household appliances cost to run?

Ever wondered which gadgets use the most power? Understanding what a kWh is helps make sense of your monthly bill, but seeing actual running costs makes it even simpler to spot which devices are secretly draining your wallet.

Here’s a quick breakdown of some common high-usage devices and how much they cost to run, based on the October Price Cap electricity rate of 26.32p per kWh.

Check out the Citizens Advice energy usage calculator to see your own numbers.

Slay your home's "vampire devices"

Many electronics keep drawing power even when you think they're turned off. Known as phantom load, these vampire-energy devices quietly drain power 24/7 while in standby mode. They include appliances like TVs, set-top boxes, games consoles, and microwave clocks. 

Getting into the habit of turning appliances off at the wall plug can save the average UK household around £45 a year. Consider using smart power strips or smart plugs to easily turn everything off at night to stop the energy leaching.

Switch to smart kitchen appliances

The kitchen is home to some of the heaviest energy users. A few small changes while cooking and cleaning can quickly trim your bills:

• Rethink your oven — Heating up a massive electric oven for a small dish wastes a lot of power. Microwaves and air fryers use far less energy because they heat food faster in a smaller space.

• Watch the kettle — Boiling a full kettle for a single cup of tea wastes power every time. Measuring out just the water you need can save you around £10 a year. Descaling your kettle also helps to keep things efficient by speeding up the boiling process.

• Turn down the laundry wash — Washing clothes at 30°C instead of 40°C cuts energy use by up to 40% per wash. Modern laundry detergents clean just as well at lower temperatures.

• Skip the tumble dryer — Tumble dryers are real power guzzlers. Air-drying clothes outside or on an indoor drying rack in a well-ventilated room can save around £50 a year.

Track your electricity in real-time with a smart meter

It's tough to cut down on electricity if you don't know where it's going. Getting a smart meter installed gives you an In-Home Display (IHD) that shows your exact energy spend in pounds and pence as you use it.

Seeing your display spike when you turn on certain gadgets makes it easy to spot inefficient appliances. Plus, smart meters send automatic readings to your supplier, so you'll never deal with estimated bills again.

Read our smart meter guide to see how you can get a free upgrade. And if you're on a specialist tariff that isn’t smart meter compatible, check out our guide on whether electricity is cheaper at night or how an Economy 7 meter works to make the most of cheaper off-peak rates.

How to reduce energy consumption

Quick daily wins are brilliant for instant savings, but if you're looking at how to reduce energy consumption for the long haul, take a step back to look at your broader home habits.

Making a few smart lifestyle shifts and upgrading your home's setup can permanently lower your power demand, boost your comfort, and keep your monthly utility bills nicely trimmed.

Shift your daily heating and power habits

Sometimes, learning how to reduce energy consumption is simply about changing how we move around our living space:

• Heat the room you’re in — Working from home? There's no need to blast central heating through the whole house all day. Use radiator valves to turn off heat in empty rooms and focus on keeping your workspace warm.  

• Swap a bath for a shower — Running a standard bathtub can take 80-120 litres of hot water. Swapping just one bath a week for a quick four-minute shower can save around £10 a year.

• Batch-cook your meals — Cooking big portions of stew, curry, or chilli in a slow cooker or oven once or twice a week uses far less power than cooking from scratch every single evening. Pop extra portions in the freezer and reheat them in the microwave for a fast, low-energy dinner.

Upgrade your home's energy performance rating (EPC)

Your home's Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) measures how energy-efficient your property is on a scale from A to G. Moving your home up an EPC band isn't just great for cutting energy consumption; it can also make your property worth more if you ever decide to sell up and move.

If you aren't sure where your home sits, read our guide on what an EPC rating means.

A few upgrades to boost your rating include:

• Topping up loft insulation — A quarter of heat in an uninsulated home escapes right through the roof. Laying loft insulation to a depth of 270 mm can save around £17 a year. 

• Upgrading old appliances — When it's time to replace a broken fridge, washing machine, or oven, make sure you check the energy label. Swapping an old G-rated fridge-freezer for a new A-rated model means you’ll be using a more efficient one. 

Harness home generation and smart tech

If you want to take a bigger leap in reducing your reliance on the main grid, modern green technology makes generating and managing your own power easier than ever:

• Install solar panels — Generating your own clean electricity directly from your roof cuts down the power you need to buy from the grid. Check out our guides on how solar panels work and find out if solar panels are worth it for your property.

• Sell power back to the grid — Already got solar panels installed? If you generate more electricity than you can use on sunny days, you can sell the surplus back to your energy supplier. Learn how to sell electricity back to the grid to turn extra power into cash.

• Charge your electric car off-peak — Driving an EV? Setting your home charger to run during cheap overnight hours means you can top up your battery for a fraction of the daytime cost. Explore our advice on electric car charging to keep your motoring costs low.

Save time and money with Utility Warehouse

At Utility Warehouse, we make sorting your essential home services completely stress-free. By bundling your energy, broadband, mobile SIMs, and home insurance together, you unlock bigger savings and get one simple, central bill every month.

Or, you can find out what support programs and schemes are available to get help with your energy bills here.