How green is your home?

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Green your house on a budget


We have put together what we think are the best ideas to reduce your carbon footprint and save money. We have put them in cost rankings, so you can choose how much you fancy spending to get the savings stated. As ever with eco-efficiency, the more money you save the more friendly you are being to the planet: it’s one of those fine old win-win situations.

The budgets given (e.g. £1000) are for undertaking ALL the actions listed below, not each of them individually. It is worth doing everything in a particular section if you can, as the various actions tend to compliment each other. It is always best to start with the cheap stuff and work up from there.

Budget £100

  • Draught proof your windows and doors. Cost £25.
  • Insulate your hot water tank. Cost £15.
  • Put tin foil behind the radiators on external walls, so the heat reflects into the room rather than going out through the wall. Cost £2.
  • Put a Hippo in your toilet cisterns to save water. Cost £5.
  • Buy a multi-block extension cable (or a few) and plug in all the electronic gadgets that you can turn off without harming them (TV, DVD etc). The flick of one switch will then shut everything down for the night and save standby electricity. Cost £30.
  • Have an organic veg box delivered: eat more vegetables and less meat. All the veg you need for a family of four will cost around £40 per week, assuming a largely vegetarian diet with little meat or fish. This is probably cheaper than buying lower quality vegetables from the supermarket, so no overall cost has been added here.
  • Replace all your light bulbs with energy savers. Assuming there are 20 normal light bulbs in your house, this will cost £20 (they are £1 each at lowest cost).
  • Turn the heating down – 18o or 19o should be fine.

Savings probably around £100 per year.

Budget £1000

  • Insulate the loft with at least 750mm of mineral wool or equivalent. Cost around £200.
  • Insulate the walls. Cost around £400 for average sized house with cavity walls.
  • Install secondary glazing. Cost around £400.

Savings likely to be around £300 per year.

Budget £10,000

  • Install a solar hot water system. Cost around £5,000 fully installed.
  • If you have a fireplace, install wood burning stove with back-boiler to boost the solar panel in the winter for water and space heating. Cost around £1,500 fully installed.
  • Install proper double glazing, at least in the windows that face the prevailing wind, are in the coldest part of the house or in the living rooms (depending on house layout, number of windows etc). Cost £3,500.

Savings likely to be around £600 per year.

The above are very generalised and based on ‘standard’ conditions for a ‘standard’ house in a ‘standard’ location. As if. Still, it should give an idea of what to think about for the budget you have.

Please also see the relevant Ecocentral articles in House and Home for more ideas and information, especially Energy Efficiency & Saving and Renewable Energy & Resources.

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