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Be Green and Save

Be Green and Save

It is not always easy to lead a life which is eco-friendly. In the fast paced life that we live everyday we often forget to live such a balanced life. When we’re at home it’s often easy to forget the little things that add up to increase our bills. You might forget to switch the heating off when you go away for a weekend, or just leave the TV on standby overnight. That these things happen occasionally is pretty much inevitable because you’ll never have a perfect memory, but if you start working hard now to change your habits eventually you’ll get it right. All too often we’re a little too wasteful at home, but here’s a few ways that you can contribute to saving the planet at the same time as cutting your costs.
1. Switching off appliances instead of leaving them on standby (especially the TV) will save you up to £11/year.
2. Wash clothes at 30 Celsius rather than normal temperature will mean you’ll use around 40% less electricity.
3. Don’t charge your mobile overnight and unplug equipment when it is fully charged, otherwise it will continue to draw electricity.
4. Cook at lower temperatures and putting a lid on pots and pans will cut your gas bill.
5. Don’t overfill your kettle. The average house wastes enough energy in a week by doing this to run a TV set for 26 hours.
6. Turn down your thermostat by 1 Celcius could save up to £30 a year, and you’ll barely notice the difference.
7. Turn down the thermostat on your hot water tank to 60 Celcius and save up to £10 a year.
8. Using energy saving light bulbs can cut lighting costs by £100 over the lifetime of the bulb, and they last 12 times longer than traditional light bulbs.
You won’t save much a year by doing just one of these things, but you will notice a healthy cash tally if you manage to tick them all off. Most of them are also forces of habit, so you might want to consider putting up little reminders up around the house until you get completely used to the new changes.
Another area that you might want to consider if you want to cut costs and save energy in the long term is getting a new boiler. If your boiler was installed pre 1989 then it is by now likely to be relatively inefficient; most boilers run at only 60% efficiency by the time they reach 15 years old. By contrast, a Combi boiler from British Gas will operate at over 90% efficiency, significantly cutting your co2 emissions and potentially saving you over £200 a year.

Article Source: http://blisspublisher.com

Craig Morris is author of this article on electricity prices. Find more information about gas and electric here.

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