Make your home energy efficient
What you can do
The following are some information on what the benefits of making your home more energy efficient and how.
- Each household in the UK creates around six tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That's six times the weight of the rubbish a household throws away in a year. It's also double the carbon dioxide emissions that the average car produces in a year.
The average household could save around two tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year by making their home energy efficient. This is not only good for our environment it will also save you money
- If everyone with gas central heating installed a new condensing boiler, we'd cut emissions by 13.1 million tonnes. We'd also save almost £1.8 billion per year on our energy bills and enough energy to heat over 3.7 million homes for a year. But you could use one third less gas for your heating & hot water by replacing an old inefficient gas boiler with a new condensing boiler.
- If everyone installed cavity wall insulation, we'd cut CO2 emissions by over 6.8 million tonnes, enough to fill over 1.3 million hot air balloons. Your household could save from £100 - £160 each year off your heating bills.
- If every home that could had 270mm loft insulation we'd save almost 4 million tonnes of CO2, the same as the annual emissions of around 710,000 homes. Your household could save a minimum of £50 a year by increasing the thickness of insulation in your loft or at least £200 if you have no insulation at all.
- If everyone put an insulation jacket on their hot water tank, we'd cut CO2 emissions by 670,000 tonnes - enough to fill around 134,000 hot air balloons. This will save a minimum of £20 each year for an average household.
- If everyone in the UK installed one energy-saving light bulb, we'd save enough CO2 to fill the Albert Hall nearly 2,000 times. One energy efficient light bulb will save at least £60 over its lifetime compared to a normal bulb and will last 12 times longer.
- If everyone installed three energy-saving bulbs in their home, we’d save enough energy to run the country’s streetlights for a year.
- If everyone turned their central heating thermostats down by 1 degree we could save 650,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year. This could save you a tenth of your heating costs each year. Setting the timer properly is important too; don’t forget to reset controls when the clocks go back on the 28th of October. Heating your home for an hour longer can add 12% to your annual heating bill.
How we can help
The council can give you advice on how to save energy but we want to offer practical solutions:
The EnergyCare scheme
As part of a new Energycare scheme the council are offering free home energy inspections to all Slough residents and have sourced funding for private householders to have loft and/or cavity wall insulation at reduced prices or even free.
For more information please call our surveying partners in the scheme Energy Services on 0800 043 9569.
More information
