Don’t let your home get away with it  – media facts

EST Don't let your home get away with it-media facts AMATO 13/08/03

Your Home

The facts:

• Every household in the UK creates around six tonnes of carbon dioxide every year – enough to fill six hot air balloons 10 meters in diameter. In fact, the average home emits more harmful carbon dioxide gas than the average car every year.

The solutions:

• The average household could save around £200 a year by taking energy efficiency measures. This is equivalent to a saving of around 2 tonnes of CO2.

The stats:

• Nearly £5 billion is wasted on energy in the UK every year. This is enough to give every man, woman and child £84 a year.

Walls, roof, windows and doors

The facts:

• More than 40% of all the heat lost in an average home is through the loft space and walls

• More heat is lost through walls than any other route – approximately 33 per cent in an un-insulated home

• Around 20% of the heat in the average home is lost through ventilation and draughts

• A fifth of all the heat lost from a home can be through poorly insulated window frames and single glazing.

 The solution:

• 250mm (10 inches) of loft insulation can save up to 25% of your heating costs.

• Cavity wall insulation is one of the most cost-effective energy efficiency measures you can take in the home. It can reduce heat loss through the wall by up to 60% and save you £70 to £100 each year on your fuel bill

• Invest in draught excluders for doors, windows and letterboxes opening onto the outside to reduce the amount of warm air escaping. Skirting boards are also worth tackling

• Double-glazing cuts heat loss and also reduces noise and condensation problems. Savings of up to £40 on bills can be expected annually

• Close your curtains at dusk to stop heat escaping.

The stats:

• The amount of heat lost in homes annually through roofs and walls is enough to heat three million homes for a year

• If everyone in the UK installed cavity wall insulation, we would cut CO2 emissions by 9 million tonnes. That’s enough to fill nearly 51 million double-decker buses

• If every household in the UK installed cavity wall insulation, it would save £670 million a year – or enough energy for 1.8 million homes for the same period

• If everyone in the UK installed loft insulation up to 250mm thickness, the equivalent financial saving would pay the energy bills of 635,000 families for a year.

Heating and water

The facts:

• The older your boiler is, the more inefficient it is likely to be. If it is 15 years or older, you should definitely think about changing it

• Heating and hot water account for over half the cost of the average fuel bill and, unless your home is newly built, your heating system is unlikely to be running as efficiently as it could.

 The solutions:

• Replacing an old boiler could save you over a fifth on your fuel bills – and up to 32% if you opt for a condensing boiler

• By upgrading heating controls you will improve the efficiency of any central heating system, and cut your energy wastage and costs by up to 17%. Fit the right heating controls as well as a condensing boiler and you could bump the savings up to 40%

• Hot water will stay hot longer, and you will waste less energy heating it, if you insulate your hot water cylinder. Fitting a jacket to your hot water tank can cut wastage by up to three quarters – a cash saving of up to £15 a year

• Hot water pipes lose heat right the way along, so insulate them wherever you can. Insulating hot water pipes can save up to £5 a year on your fuel bills

• Reducing your heating thermostat by 1°C when you are too warm can cut up to 10% off bills.

• Water needn’t be heated to a scalding temperature. Setting the thermostat at 60° C or 140° F is usually quite adequate.

The stats:

• If everyone in the UK with gas central heating installed a condensing boiler, we would cut CO2 emissions by 17.5 million tonnes, saving £1.3 billion on our energy bills every year. This is enough energy to meet the needs of over 4 million homes for a year

• CO2 emissions would be cut by 2 million tonnes (11 million double-decker buses) if everyone in the UK put a jacket on their hot water tank

• If everyone in the UK installed a condensing boiler the equivalent energy saved would meet the energy requirements for all the homes in the West Midlands for over a year.

Appliances

• Energy efficient appliances use less power and are cheaper to run. And because they need less energy, they're responsible for fewer greenhouse gas emissions back at the power station - good news for the environment

 • To pick out energy efficient from the pack, look out for the Energy Efficiency Recommended logo. The distinctive blue and orange logo can be found on anything from fridges to tumble dryers, to dishwashers and light bulbs. It is a sure sign that the appliance being bought is one of the most efficient in its category.

Washing machines/Tumble dryers/Dishwashers

The facts:

• Nine in 10 homes in the UK have a washing machine; 35 per cent have a tumble dryer and one in four have a dishwasher

• We use £800 million worth of electricity, by using washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwashers. This produces 5 million tonnes (28.5 million double-decker buses) of carbon dioxide each year.

• The average washing machine is used for 274 cycles a year; a dishwasher for 250 cycles and a tumble dryer 148 times.

The solutions:

• An energy efficient washing machine uses a third of the energy of an old, inefficient model and cuts water consumption considerably

• Using a 40°C wash cycle rather than 60°C means you use a third less electricity. Reduce the wash to a 30°C cycle and the amount of electricity saved (not to mention money) will be even higher. Modern washing powders and detergents work just as effectively at lower temperatures so unless you have very dirty washing, bear this in mind

• An energy efficient dishwasher will cut energy wastage by nearly half on non-efficient models. When using your dishwasher or washing machine, it’s better to wait for a full load, or use the economy cycle if your machine has one

• By buying an efficient tumble dryer, you can cut energy wastage by almost a third. To save further energy, avoid trying to dry really wet clothes – wring or spin-dry them first. Not only will the clothes dry faster, you will save money.

Refrigeration

The facts:

• UK households use £1.2 billion worth of electricity every year on cooling and freezing food and drinks

• Refrigeration and freezing appliances in UK homes use nearly as much electricity as all offices

The solutions:

• Buying an energy efficient fridge freezer to replace your inefficient model could cut carbon dioxide emissions produced indirectly by your home by up to 228Kg a year

• An energy efficient fridge freezer uses nearly a third of the energy to do the same job as a 10-year-old appliance – that’s a saving of up to £35 a year.

The stats:

• If everyone in the UK upgraded their old cold appliance to an A-rated, energy efficient product, energy wastage would be cut by over two-thirds. That’s the equivalent of over 35 million double-decker buses of CO2.

Other consumer electronics

The facts:

• UK households spend £700 million every year on electricity used in consumer electronic products

• Set-top boxes for the reception of digital TV are being given away for free, by 2010 they could be costing UK households £357m every year in electricity or £14 per household

• Every year VCRs in the UK use £113 million, and TVs £50 million, worth of electricity just waiting to be switched on. In fact, 85% of the electricity used by your VCR is consumed while it is not actually on

• If everyone boiled only the water they needed to make a cup of tea instead of “filling” the kettle every time, we could save enough electricity in a year to run more than three quarters of the street lighting in the country.

Lighting

The facts:

• In most homes, lighting accounts for 10 – 15% of the electricity bill

• UK households use £1.2 billion worth of electricity every year on lighting

• Electricity consumption by domestic lights and appliances has nearly doubled since 1970 and it is set to increase by 12% to 2010.

The solutions:

• Energy saving lightbulbs use electronics that enable them to produce a highly efficient and compact light using a fraction of the energy

• By buying an energy efficient lightbulb rather than the other alternatives, you can cut energy wastage by over three quarters. That’s around £7 a year on your energy bill, or £65 over the bulb’s lifetime

• Energy efficient bulbs last up to 12 times longer than their inefficient counterparts.

The facts:

• If every UK household installed 3 Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs enough energy would be saved in a year to supply all street lighting in the UK.

• If everyone installed one energy saving light bulb the carbon dioxide emissions saved would fill the Royal Albert Hall nearly 3000 times

• An area three times the size of the Isle of Wight would need to be planted with Sitca spruce to absorb the carbon resulting from the annual UK use of domestic electric lights and appliances.

• The British public walks to the moon and back twice every year to change lightbulbs. CFLs last 10 times as long as standard bulbs: save your shoe leather – install a CFL.

General Information

Insulation

• Did you know that more than 40% of the heat lost from an average house is through loft spaces and walls?

• By insulating these areas not only can you reduce your fuel bills, you can also make your home warmer

• By installing loft insulation to a depth of at least 250mm (10"), you could save up to 25% of your heating costs

• If your home is un-insulated, your walls are responsible for as much as 33% of all your lost heat

• Insulating cavity walls provides one of the biggest energy savings in the home, reducing heat loss through the wall by up to 60%.

Heating

• Upgrading your gas central heating could save you up to 40% on your heating bills (based on a 3 bed semi-detached house)

• Replacing a 15 year old boiler could save you over 20% on your fuel bills or 32% if a condensing boiler is installed

• By upgrading heating controls, you will improve the efficiency of your heating system and can cut heating costs by up to 17%

• By fitting a full controls package you could save £50-£60 per year.

Glazing

• Around 20% of the heat lost from an average home occurs through the windows, by fitting double glazed low emissivity with integral draught sealing this can be reduced by more than half

• Replacing the single glazing in a typical semi-detached house with low e double-glazing can save over £40 per year.

NOTES: All statistics correct at 18/08/03. All information should be credited to the Energy Saving Trust

Personal energy efficiency advice is available to anyone through the Energy Saving Trust advice centres. To be connected to your local advice centre call 0800 512 012 or go to www.saveenergy.co.uk