{"id":146,"date":"2012-01-13T10:35:18","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T10:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/?p=146"},"modified":"2012-01-13T10:35:18","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T10:35:18","slug":"energy-efficient-home-improvements-waste-time-123","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/energy-efficient-home-improvements-waste-time-123\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Energy Efficient Home Improvements a Waste of Time?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the modern world, especially in a time of economic hardship, we are all suffering. Money is tight and getting even tighter as bills rise, so why should we be bothered with pointless measures for energy efficiency. Why should we waste our hard earned cash on measures that don\u2019t bring any direct return? This article aims to give an overview of why energy efficient measures are important to everyone now.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it worrying how much our utility bills have risen in the last few years? Even now the utility companies are fighting to gain new customers by offering new rates. Sometimes you can actually make savings by swapping suppliers, but you can\u2019t actually cut your usage without making real changes at home.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all had it drilled into us about making sure lights are switched off, electronic devices not left on standby, and the dreaded mobile phone chargers switched off after use; just as we\u2019re encouraged to turn the thermostat down by a degree.\u00a0 All of these measures, and more, do have an impact on how much energy we use, but it relies on us changing how we live. Sometimes we are too stuck in our ways, sometimes we just can\u2019t make the change, sometimes we just don\u2019t want to and sometimes we have made the change and just want to go further, this is where actual improvements to your home can help to save you money.<\/p>\n

Improvements to your home<\/a> can help to permanently reduce your utilities expenditure, not just saving you a few pounds on a tariff now, but saving you on actual usage and ongoing costs forever. \"solar<\/a>Don\u2019t be put off by the \u2018green credentials\u2019 attached to products and improvements, or by counting the CO2 that your efforts will save. Don\u2019t even expect it to add value to your home. Whether you are a green convert or apathetic, these improvements can save you money over time.<\/p>\n

There are numerous measures available on the market from the low cost, such as Smart Meters which help you to keep an eye on your energy use, low energy lighting, cavity wall and loft insulation through to the high cost measures such as replacing your boiler with a modern, more efficient, one or even to go to renewable technologies, like solar panels.<\/p>\n

And these measures don\u2019t have to be expensive, in many cases the improvement is subject to being subsidised or even free under a grant system, depending on your circumstances.\u00a0 Some measures, such as loft and cavity wall insulation<\/a>, don\u2019t even need maintaining, once they are in, they are in and they are saving you money year upon year.<\/p>\n

For those with more income and resources there are other improvements that can be paid for which will return on investment over a much longer period, but even these will make savings.<\/p>\n

So the question really is this. Do you want to spend your life running from utility supplier to utility supplier, trying to get a slightly better tariff and rate to reduce your energy bills<\/a>, or do you want to make some changes now that could actually cut the amount of energy that you use for good and save money permanently?<\/p>\n

Does that sound like a waste of time to you?<\/p>\n

Photo by Dave Dugdale<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the modern world, especially in a time of economic hardship, we are all suffering. Money is tight and getting even tighter as bills rise, so why should we be bothered with pointless measures for energy efficiency. Why should we waste our hard earned cash on measures that don\u2019t bring any direct return? This article […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,26],"tags":[30,32,33,278,16],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","category-home-improvements","tag-energy-efficency-improvements","tag-photvoltaic-panels","tag-smart-meters","tag-solar-panels","tag-solar-pv"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/1311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}