Our gas bill dropped through the postbox this morning, and as we’d expected, it wasn’t very pretty.
Over £200 for just under 4 months (which was estimated, so it might come down a bit), and although I haven’t really got a clue how this compares to the average gas bill, I get the feeling it’s on the high side.
This is the first bill we’ve had through our new supplier, EDF, who we switched to back in September. I dread to think what the bill would have been if we hadn’t switched. They have a nice little feature on their bills which shows your average daily gas usage during the period the bill covers. This gives us something to aim for over the next quarter – reducing our gas consumption and cutting our bills. So how can we do this? I’ve identified a few areas that we can definitely improve on:
- Close curtains to reduce heat loss – now that it’s dark when I get home from work, I try to get the curtains closed as soon as possible to keep in as much heat as possible. One annoyance is that most of our radiators are situated beneath windows, which seems like the most inefficient place to put them. Hopefully shutting the curtains combats this a little.
- Turn central heating down – reducing the temperature of the central heating by even s single degree can have a big impact on gas consumption, and usually it’s unnoticeable.
- Wear more clothes – another simple tip to reduce heating costs, but sometimes it’s easy to overlook when you’re strolling around your home in a t-shirt in the middle of winter.
- Boil water with kettle – apparently, it’s cheaper to boil your water (for boiling veg etc) with the kettle rather than on a gas hob.
- Use the right amount of water for the job – this goes for saving both gas and electric. Only boil the amount of water that you need.
These are all pretty standard gas saving tips – do you have any more radical tips? If so, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.