6 budget-friendly tips to save on your energy bills

While the government's Energy Price Guarantee means that energy prices are lower than they would otherwise be, most people's bills are still likely to be higher this year than they've been before.

For many people, lowering energy usage where you can will be an important part of keeping up with your household bills. Although cost-saving measures such as double glazing are effective, they're likely to be too expensive for a lot of people to actually do this winter. But there are other ways to lower bills without needing to spend too much.

From tweaking your boiler settings to draught-proofing your home, read on to find out how you can reduce your energy bills on a budget.

Get help with your household bills with our latest cost of living advice and tips.

1. Insulate your home: starting from less than £20

Insulating your home goes a long way to help you make savings on your energy bills.

Buying foam insulation – which you can buy from DIY stores – to fit around any exposed hot water pipes will cost around £15, according to estimates from the Energy Saving Trust (based on a three-bedroom semi-detached property in September 2022). Doing this will typically cut your annual energy bills by £9 per year (alongside 18kg of CO2).

If you have a hot water cylinder, top up the hot water jacket to a 80mm one. The Energy Saving Trust found that this tends to cost £16, but will save a typical energy billpayer £70 a year. That means you'll see your money back in around three months. This comes alongside an annual CO2 saving of 155kg. 

If you have a loft and are happy to do some DIY, you can buy and fit your own loft insulation. According to the Energy Saving Trust, taking your loft insulation from 0mm to 270mm can save £390 a year for a semi-detached house and nearly £600 a year for a detached one. It can be expensive to have installed professionally (around £455), but if you're able to invest, you'll get your money back pretty quickly.

Find out more about how to make your home more energy efficient.

2. Review your energy bills and submit frequent meter readings: free

For most people, now isn't the best time to switch energy provider, given that the EPG is in place no matter which supplier you’re with, and energy companies aren't offering fixed deals that would compete.

But there are savings to be made with a little admin. 

• If you’re still receiving paper bills, contact your energy company about changing to paperless ones and managing your account online instead, as some providers charge customers for paper bills.
• Paying by direct debit is usually the cheapest method of paying for your energy usage, rather than paying once you’ve received your bill. 
• Question any direct debit increases that seem too high. Your energy company should be able to explain the changes and your usage, and payments should balance out over a year. They might lower them if challenged and you can justify that you think their estimates are too high.
• Sending your supplier regular meter readings will also keep your payments accurate and stop you from getting estimate bills. If you have a smart meter, this will be done automatically.

Read more: gas and electricity meters explained.

3. Use your heating controls effectively: free

Making the most of your heating controls can be a useful way to lower your heating demands. It's all about trying to keep the parts of your home you're actually in at a comfortable temperature, without wasting heat anywhere else.

If you've got valves on your radiators, get into the habit of adjusting them when you go in and out of rooms. You might want your living room warm but bedrooms cold, for example. Your boiler will be working less hard and using less gas if it's not heating as much of your central heating network.

Smart thermostats and smart radiator valves can do these jobs, too, and you'll be able to set them up with an app on your phone instead of manually, but they are expensive to install. If you're in a position to, take a look at our guide to how to buy the best smart thermostat and pair it with smart thermostatic radiator valves.

To keep your radiators working effectively and get the most out of your heating, you should also keep a gap between your radiators and furniture, ensure curtains aren’t hanging in front of radiators, remove any radiator covers, and bleed radiators to remove any cold spots.

If you only have one thermostat for your home, turning it down by 1°C would save around £145 a year, according to estimates from the Energy Saving Trust. For most people, the lowest comfortable temperature to set your heating is around 18°C. 

Find out more about how to make sure your heating doesn't affect your health.

4. Draught proof your home: starting from less than £20

While you can pay for professional draught proofing (the Energy Saving Trust estimates it would cost £223 for a typical household) there are lots of draught-proofing measures you can make yourself and you'll find cheap draught-proofing equipment at DIY shops and hardware stores.

And while blocking up draughty gaps around doors and windows might not result in an enormous saving on your bills, it will make your home feel more pleasant and cosy, and could reduce how often you feel you need to crank up the thermostat.

Take a look at the following areas:

• Windows Use draught-proofing strips around the frame. Brush strips work better for sash windows.
• Doors Use draught-proofing strips around the edges and brush or hinged-flap draught excluders at the bottom.
• Chimney and fireplace Use an inflatable pillow to block the chimney, or (if you don't use your fireplace) fit a cap over the chimney pot. If you have an open chimney, this alone could save you £18 a year. 
• Floorboards and skirting Floorboards need to be able move, so use a flexible silicone-based filler to fill gaps.
• Loft hatches Use draught-proofing foam strips to keep heat in.

If you've already ticked off the big draught-proofing jobs, consider smaller holes that let in cold air, such as keyholes and letterboxes. Find out more in our guide to draught proofing.

5. Save on hot water: free

Although you might only use your heating in winter, you use energy year-round to heat your water. So heating and using it wisely will positively impact your bills.

If you have a hot water tank (rather than a combi boiler), make sure you're using your heating controls to turn your water heating on and off, so you only heat as much water as you need at certain times of day. 

If you have a combi boiler, you can lower the temperature your boiler heats your hot water too as well. A hot water setting of 60°C will suit most people. It's a case of using trial and error to see what suits your home.

Combi boilers carry a very low risk of water contamination because they take water from the mains on-demand and don't store water for any length of time.

But heat loss does occur in between your boiler and water outlets, so the water that comes out of your taps will be a little cooler than your boiler's setting. 

High-volume power showers can use more water in less than five minutes than running a bath, so you could consider fitting an eco shower head. Your shower will still feel powerful, but it will cut down on your hot water use. 

Using a timer could also help you reduce your water use where you can as well. For instance, using a time in the shower to help you keep your shower time to four minutes or under can save £95 per person, the Energy Saving Trust estimates. 

You could also try using a timer to see how long you're washing up for and try not to have the hot tap running for too long. Make sure you're washing up in the sink or a bowl rather than under a free running tap, too.

Read more of our tips to making savings on your energy bills. 

6. Lower your boiler flow temperature: free

The water flow temperature in a combi boiler tends to be set as high as 75°C to 80°C, but many homes with condensing combi boilers can be suitably warmed with heating flow temperatures of 50°C to 70°C, or even lower. 

Lowering your boiler’s flow temperature means it uses less gas and operates more efficiently, so you’ll get immediate cost savings on your energy bills while still keeping your home warm.

Research from the Heating and Hotwater Industry Council (HHCI) published in September 2022 found you can make a saving of 6% to 8% on your gas bills by lowering a combi boiler's radiator flow to 50°C. 

The HHCI recommends that people adapt their boiler settings with the advice of a boiler engineer. This is particularly true if you have a system or regular boiler that keeps water stored in a tank. Because stored water needs to be heated a certain amount to avoid Legionnella bacteria, you should only change settings with professional advice if you have a storage tank. 

But if you've got a combi, have made sure it's safe and checked your boiler's technical manual, you can adjust the flow temperature yourself. This setting is accessible to anyone and it can be changed using your boiler controls. The flow temperature for heating is generally symbolised by a little picture of a radiator and, for hot water, a picture of a tap. Up and down arrows will change the temperature settings.

Nesta has created an interactive boiler temperature tool to take you through the step-by-step process of changing flow temperature settings. A combi heating setting of 65°C, as a midway point, can be a good place to start. Once you know how to do it, you can adjust this down lower as you get a feel for the effects on your home.

Find out more about lowering your combi boiler flow temperature and how to get the best boiler service.