Energy Saving Tips That Actually Work (And Ones That Don't)

There’s no shortage of energy saving advice online. The problem is that most of it treats every tip as equally worthwhile, when in reality some save you £100 a year and others save you 50p. We’ve ranked things by how much they actually matter so you can focus on what moves the needle.

The Things That Genuinely Matter

Turning your thermostat down is the single biggest quick win. Dropping it by just 1°C typically saves 8-10% on your heating costs, which works out to about £80-£100 a year for an average household. Most people genuinely can’t tell the difference between 20°C and 19°C once they’ve lived with it for a week. It’s worth trying before writing it off.

Fixing draughts is the other big one. Cold air sneaking in through gaps around windows, doors, floorboards, and chimneys means your heating has to work harder to keep the place warm. Draught-proofing is mostly cheap DIY stuff: brush strips on windows and doors (£5-£30), filler in floorboard gaps (£10-£30), a chimney balloon or cap (£20-£50). Between all of them, you’re looking at saving £70-£150 a year in a draughty house. And 15-20% of heating can be wasted through draughts, so it’s not a small thing.

Only heating rooms you use sounds obvious, but a lot of people leave radiator valves turned up in spare bedrooms and rooms they barely go in. Turn them down. There’s no point keeping the guest room at 21°C when nobody’s sleeping there.

Using a heating timer properly makes a difference too. Your boiler doesn’t need to be running all day. Set it to come on 30 minutes before you wake up, switch off when you leave, come on again before you get home, and switch off at bedtime. If you’ve got a smart thermostat, it’ll learn your patterns and do this automatically.

Worth Doing, Smaller Savings

Washing at 30°C works fine for most clothes with modern detergents. You only need higher temperatures for heavily soiled stuff, towels, or bedding. Saves around £20-£30 a year compared to 40°C washes.

Not overfilling the kettle sounds trivial, but if you make a lot of cups of tea (and this is the UK, so you probably do), boiling just what you need adds up to £20-£30 a year.

LED bulbs use 80% less energy than old incandescent bulbs. You don’t need to replace everything at once - just swap them in as old ones die. Each bulb saves £3-£8 a year depending on how much it’s on.

Turning off standby is real but modest. A TV on standby costs around £10-£15 a year. Plugging things into a power strip and switching it off before bed is the easiest approach.

Full loads only in the washing machine and dishwasher. Running them half-empty wastes water and energy. If you can’t wait for a full load, use the eco or half-load setting.

Shorter showers save both water and energy. Every minute less means less hot water being heated. For a family, this can add up to £20-£40 a year.

Don’t Bother With These

Turning off phone chargers when not in use is the energy saving tip that won’t die. A charger left plugged in but not connected to a phone uses about 0.1-0.5 watts. That’s roughly 50p a year. Genuinely not worth thinking about.

Closing curtains during the day in winter actually costs you money if you’ve got south-facing windows. Sunlight coming through the glass is free heat. Close them at night to reduce heat loss, absolutely, but during the day you want that solar gain.

Defrosting your freezer makes it run slightly more efficiently, but unless the ice buildup is really extreme, we’re talking a couple of quid a year. Do it because the drawers won’t open, not for savings.

Putting lids on pots while cooking saves maybe £2-£3 a year. It’s not nothing, technically, but it’s not going to change your finances.

Bigger Investments

If you’ve done the easy stuff and want to go further, there are options that cost more upfront but pay back over time. Loft insulation (£300-£400 DIY) can save £150-£200 a year and pays for itself in 2-4 years. Cavity wall insulation (£500-£1,500) saves £100-£180 a year, paying back in 3-8 years. A smart thermostat (£150-£250) saves £60-£100, paying back in 2-3 years.

Double glazing is a different story. It costs £3,000-£7,000 and saves maybe £80-£120 a year, so the payback on energy savings alone is 25+ years. It’s worth doing for comfort and noise, but don’t kid yourself it’s a financial decision. Solar panels (£5,000-£8,000) are somewhere in between, with savings of £200-£400 a year and a payback of 12-20 years.

Before paying for insulation yourself, check whether you qualify for government grants through ECO4 or the Great British Insulation Scheme. You might get it done free or at a significant discount.

Where to Focus

The honest summary: thermostat, draughts, and heating controls are where the real money is. Everything else is either a nice bonus or barely worth the effort. Start at the top of the list and work down until the savings get too small to care about.