Save Money: What you Can Learn from January’s Energy Bills

After a festive season of overindulgence, it isn’t just our credit card bills that can reach soaring highs come January, our energy bills can also be pretty pricey! While the winter period is considerably more expensive than the rest of the year, our January bills seem to be the highest of all of the months – this is mainly due to the festive feeling of frivolous spending, leading to all of us cranking up the heating and leaving appliances switched on without concern to energy bills.

To avoid another shock in February and to lower those bills, here are some things that you can learn from January’s energy bills…
Switch Providers
2013 saw four of the ‘big six’ energy providers increase their rates by as much as 9% – this may the main reason for January’s bills being much higher than previous months. One way that you can try to reduce the amount for future months is to shop around for cheaper energy providers. A good idea is to look at rates from smaller energy companies as they may have cheaper deals, there may even be introductory rates when you switch.
Upgrade your Heating Pump
One of the biggest culprits for high energy bills is an inefficient heating pump. A home’s central heating is operated by a circulator pump, these Grundfos circulator pumps circulate heated water throughout the home’s radiators and water supply and then send cold water back to the boiler to be reheated. In-efficient circulator pumps can be upgraded to A-Labelled energy efficient pumps, as this can help save you up to 80% in energy – lowering those pricey heating bills as a result!
Use heating on a Timer System
The habit of turning the heating on as and when we need it can sometimes mean that our heating can be on for quite long periods – we may even forget about \it and leave it on when we’re out of the house! Using a timer system will allow you to heat the home at the most optimum times such as when you wake up and when you get back home from work in the evening. Using heating only when you need it should help to lower the cost of energy bills.
Unplug Appliances
It is something we all say we will do, but most of us actually forget about doing this; unplugging appliances and turning electricity off at the socket may only make a small change to your energy bills but every little counts!
Take Showers rather than baths
If you find that your water bill is considerably higher in January, you may have to take a look at your water usage. Using baths can actually use 30 – 50 gallons of water, whereas an average shower of four minutes generally only requires 20 gallons of water, these small adjustments can see you saving money in the long term.