Cut your energy bill this winter with these 4 big energy-saving tips

All of a sudden, the mornings have turned much cooler. If we needed a reminder that winter is on its way, we’ve had it.

Before it gets chilly all day and downright frosty at night, now’s the time to get your home ready to not only keep you cosier but also save on your winter energy bills.

As we’ve outlined before, in any part of the world where winter is cold enough to require the use of indoor heating, that makes up a significant proportion of the annual energy costs for households and businesses.

So, it makes sense to minimise the need for heating and, even more importantly, to make sure that what heating you are using is efficient with little to no wasted energy output.

Energy saving should be a long-term plan

Using a bit less energy day-to-day by switching fewer things on and more things off when they’re not needed is a good thing, and we encourage that.

However, to really make a significant difference to your usage and bills, you might need to make some changes to your house rather than just your habits.

Keep in mind that even if you have to spend a bit of money doing these things, you’ll be saving not just this year, but every year from now on. And you’ll be adding real value to your home, too.

Here are four things you can do over the next month or so to get your home ready for winter so that you use less energy for heating and reduce your bills, accordingly.

Tip #1: Ducted heat transfer

Many Australian homes don’t have a heater in the kitchen or bedrooms, which makes sense as those rooms don’t need to be heated most of the time. A ducted heat transfer kit is an easy and efficient way to use excess heat to warm a room with no heater.

Sometimes called a heat shifter, a ducted heat transfer system consists of a fan and ducting, and costs little to install and run. In fact, if you’re looking to recirculate warm air to just one other room, a kit can be as little as a few hundred dollars.

It’s a pretty simple concept: move heated air from high-traffic areas and circulate it to cooler parts of the house. Heat transfer can also take the warmer air that naturally rises and accumulates in the roof cavity (or an upper storey) and direct that down into the living spaces.

There are a couple of other significant benefits, too.

Better air circulation reduces the formation of cold air pockets and condensation from excess humidity, thereby reducing the risks of mildew, mould, and musty smells, while the process of heat recovery will reduce the carbon emissions from your home.

Tip #2: Double glazing

A lot of heat can escape through windows. You only need to stand next to an exposed window in winter to feel how much the cold air outside is cooling the glass and, in turn, the warm air on the inside of the window, reducing the effectiveness of your heating system.

Double-glazed windows use a sealed gap between the two panes as essentially an extra layer of insulation, reducing the amount of heat escaping.

The space between the two panes of glass is usually filled with a specific gas like argon, krypton, or xenon, with a layer of desiccant over an airtight seal.

Homes with double-glazed windows not only have better insulation from the cold in winter, making them more energy efficient, but are also kept cooler in summer and tend to be quieter, as double-glazing can be very effective for noise reduction.

If the cost of double-glazing all of your windows is prohibitive, consider at the very least double-glazing those in the main living areas where you use your heating the most.

Reducing the amount of heating you need to heat just one or two main living areas will make a significant difference to your overall bill.

Tip #3: Heavier curtains or fitted blinds

Large expanses of glass might be great to take in the views, but those floor-to-ceiling windows cool down fast when the temperature outside drops, and they’re then cold on both sides.

So, it’s well worth investing in floor-length thermal curtains to trap the cold right there. Think of it as turning a wall of cold glass into a wall of much-less-cold material, preferably material that traps the heat in the room where you want it.

Honeycomb or cellular blinds are widely regarded as the most energy-efficient window covering, as the individual cells running down these blinds trap the air and have a similar effect to a double-glazed window. Blinds will also reduce heat gain in summer by reflecting the heat back out the window, particularly if the external surface is white or close to white.

It’s important that curtains fall well below the window frame, preferably all the way to the floor, with a weighted bottom hem to reduce movement.

If you can hang heavier curtains throughout the house, you’ll save quite a bit on that heating you’ve been wasting warming up the windows and fighting the influence of the cold air … but remember to open the curtains when the sun is shining on windows to let the natural heat in.

Tip #4: Seal air leaks

A draught coming in under a door might be an easy one to feel and an easy one to reduce with a simple sausage – a draft arrester, stopper, excluder, door snake, or whatever you call it.

However, there are plenty of other candidates for letting the cold air leak in during winter. Ideally, you could get a professional energy audit, which will also identify areas that need better insulation. But having a good look around can often reveal some obvious gaps to seal.

Using your hand is the easiest ‘method’ for identifying where cold air is infiltrating, but you can also use a candle or even incense and look for the flame or smoke being blown sideways.

As well as checking around window and door frames, check out:

fireplaces and chimneys
attic hatches
wall- or window-mounted air conditioners
where dryer vents pass through walls
vents and fans
cable TV and phone lines
electrical and gas service entrances
electrical outlets and switch plates
pipes (for example under the sink).

Bonus Tip: Clean your heater and ducts

An annual pre-winter cleaning of the filters on your heater will ensure it runs efficiently. That includes making sure all the ducts of your ducted system are clean and clear of obstructions.

While you’re at it, consider closing the ducts in any rooms that really don’t need to be heated all the time (you can open them if you need to when you’re using those rooms).

Get the whole family on the same page

Discuss and decide which rooms will be heated and which rooms won’t, then make sure everyone knows to keep those internal doors closed. After all, there’s no point heating the bathrooms and laundry, and you don’t want the cold air from those rooms infiltrating the warmer parts of the house.

You can also discuss the thermostat setting (between 18 and 20 degrees), the timing of the heating coming on in the morning (15 minutes before you get up is enough – you don’t need the whole house to be heated before you get out of bed), and even whether anyone in the family needs some new indoor gear, like fleecy tracksuit pants or indoor socks.

If a little effort, a few changes, and a few hundred dollars spent now can save you hundreds of dollars a year, every year, from now on, isn’t that a worthwhile investment?