designerradiators

Household energy bills are one of the largest expenses for the majority of households. From personal experience, we’ve just received a bill for £360 for one month’s gas and electricity supply (although, to be fair, this is largely because we’ve never had central heating before, and we assumed it would be a sixth of the cost!) and so we understand the importance of cutting back on energy bills.

In the UK, the largest energy companies have recently announced a cut to their prices, which will start in February (convenient, seeing, as it will start to get warm then!).

Whatever, we all need to find ways to reduce the amount of energy that we use.

Here, we’ve compiled a list of things that you can do in your household to help reduce the cost of your energy bills.

Radiator Reflector Foil
One thing that people fail to do, but which can work very well, is to install radiator reflector foil behind their radiators. It doesn’t matter whether you have horizontal or vertical radiators; they can help to save you money. They do several things that help to save money:

1. They reflect heat into the room. The room feels warmer and as a consequence, people are unlikely to turn the heating up higher.

2. They prevent heat from going into the walls and dissipating into the rest of the house, or against the outside wall. With radiators that have TVRs, this means that the temperature gauge will read a more accurate temperature, and consequently, that it won’t increase the radiator output more than it needs to be

Radiator reflectors can save you quite a lot of money in the end. Some people are reluctant to buy them because they think they look ugly. Well, firstly, with most horizontal and vertical radiators, you won’t see the reflector through the panels, and secondly, you can paint over them, so even if you can see them, you won’t necessarily realise what you’re look at, because they appear the same as the rest of the wall.

Insulation
Your house needs to be well insulated. You need to walk around your property and spot places that are poorly insulated. Here are a number of things that you should be checking:

1. Look at your pipe work. Are pipes insulated? If not, you need to buy insulation for all of the pipes that you can see. This includes insulating the boiler. According to some sources, insulating your boiler will save you between £10 and £50 per year, so it’s certainly worth it in the long term.

2. Loft installation: a lack of insulation in your roof will cost you hundreds of pounds in extra electricity bills. In fact, it’s such a waste of electricity that the government will insulate your roof for free. There really is no excuse in having a poorly insulated roof.

3. Do you have cavity walls? If you do, they should be insulated. You can hire specialists that will fill the cavities with insulation. It’s fairly expensive, but it will save you money in the long term.

4. Do you have solid walls? If so, then it’s a bit tricky for you. You can buy special insulation that you take to the wall, in the same way that decorators put up plasterboard. However, it will mean losing a bit of floor space, so you will have to weigh up the cost and benefit.

If you would like to browse a collection of energy saving radiators, including vertical radiators, then please visit http://www.designerradiatorsdirect.co.uk/vertical-radiators