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Oil
Use Down 27%
3.5 Tons Of CO2 Saved
Tip
Of The Day:
Minimise The Use Of Open Gas Fires In Fireplaces With Open Chimneys
As the cost of heating a home continues to rise it becomes more and more economic
to invest money so save on heating costs. In some cases grants
are available from local councils for various forms of insulation.
While the results here were obtained with an oil fired central
heating system most of them will be applicable to other forms
of heating.
Up until 2005 heating was the area where least work had been
done to save energy with only ad-hoc changes being made until the
middle of 2006 although this did include a lot of the Simple
Tips. These
changes have made quite a difference despite the addition
of two rooms to the heating system with a new radiator in each.
During 2006 and 2007 some more structured changes were made to the
system which have lead to even bigger savings. This has included
a major upgrade to the loft insulation and pipe insulation in the
loft which is where most of the wasted heat appeared to be going.
Unfortunately although oil use has dropped the cost has still
risen due to oil prices more than doubling over the period. One area of heating
costs that is not fully quantified yet is our use of a wood burning
stove in the lounge on an occasional basis. During 2008 we
plan to use this much more and the costs will need sorting out
properly.
While following the Simple Tips will
save money, to achieve the biggest saving a structured approach
works best. It is difficult to compare savings year on year since
the outside temperature is not constant. This means small savings
can be swamped by annual temperature variations, it is still worth
persevering with these since the effect of many small savings is
cumulative and will become noticeable over time as can be seen
from the cost and use information.
Before embarking on expensive measures to reduce costs make sure all the simple and easy to implement changes have been done, the savings obtained may make the expensive changes uneconomic since the pay back time of big changes may be longer than the expected life of the equipment.
These pages are split into two main sections:
General Information and the process I use to identify and implement
savings plus a summary of the results which are updated as information
becomes available.
Caution: Before reducing or
eliminating draughts make sure boilers are adequately ventilated
and properly serviced. If in doubt consult a competent person.
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