With winter well on the way, it is time to think about how to keep our fuel and electricity costs down. Everybody’s home, needs and lifestyle are different, making it difficult to be specific. So this advice is rather general and some of it may not apply to you, but importantly I have focussed on the things we can do if we don’t own our home, or if we cannot afford to improve it, or if improvements are not feasible because of the way it is built.

Draughts are a big cause of avoidable heat loss, so of course we all know to keep windows and doors closed. But don’t forget internal doors: keeping those shut will make it more difficult for the wind to blow air through the house or flat. Use draught excluders, and check the draughtproofing, but be careful not to obstruct ventilation in rooms which contain combustion appliances.

If you need to air a room, keep its door closed and open the window wide for a short period: Twenty minutes should normally be enough.

Don’t heat unused spaces like boxrooms or spare bedrooms. Close them up, draw their curtains, and turn off any heating. If you have a conservatory, don’t heat it. My ‘siege tactics’ advice would be to deliberately change how you use your home, congregating in a warm room rather than spreading throughout the house.

Remember that window-glass is not a good insulator. Curtains, blinds and solid shutters will help retain heat, so keep them closed as much as possible—even during the day wherever you can.

If you have central heating, minimise the time you run it for. If most of your rooms are usually unoccupied try turning the main heating thermostat right down and use supplementary heating in the rooms you’re actually using. Radiant heaters are the most economical way to keep an individual room comfortable because they directly heat the occupants. Furthermore, because they don’t warm up the air so much, any draughts cause less heat loss, and they also respond quickly so you only need them on when there are people in the room.

A tip: don’t believe the hype about fancy high-tech “more efficient” electric heaters. All electric heaters provide the same amount of heat per unit of electricity, and a cheap basic convector heater or fan heater is fine as long as it has good thermostatic control.

If you are lucky enough to have gas central heating with a condensing boiler, do follow the common advice and reduce the radiator flow temperature to 60⁰C when you can. This will ensure that the boiler extracts the most useful heat out of the gas. However, it will limit the output of radiators so you may need to raise the flow temperature again in very cold weather. But don’t turn down the flow temperature of a non-condensing boiler, as you could damage it.

Finally if you have central heating and some money to spend, a modern heating controller allows you to set different space temperatures through the day at different times for each day of the week. Obviously this is only practical if your household has a regular weekly routine.

On-demand hot water from a combi boiler is the most cost-effective method but if you have a hot water storage cylinder, make sure that it is properly insulated. You will save a little by not heating it outside normal hours of use, but the better-insulated it is, the less the benefit.

Any appliance that involves heating is likely to contribute a lot to your bills, so ovens, electric showers, grills, cooking rings, tumble dryers and the like should not be left running any longer than is absolutely necessary. If you have the option, use a microwave cooker or air fryer rather than the oven; ‘siege tactics’ would be to cut down on laundry.

If you still have any filament light bulbs of any sort (including halogen) that run for extended periods, replace them with LED lamps.

A tumble dryer with simple heat recovery (or preferably heat-pump technology) is much more economical than one with an air hose to hang out of the window. Drying laundry indoors will cause condensation. If you have space outside, always use it in preference, but a lot of the time you will be forced to dry clothes indoors, so consider buying a dehumidifier with a ‘laundry’ setting. This removes moisture from the air and directs warm air over the whatever you are drying. The room containing the laundry and the dehumidifier needs to be closed off from the rest of the house, otherwise airborne moisture will get in and reduce the drying effect. When there’s a lot to dry, you might need to deploy a small electric heater to push the relative humidity down.

Heating your home intermittently saves fuel but would increase the risk of condensation, especially if you have reduced the ventilation rate. This brings a risk of mould growth. Bathing, showering, cooking, and drying clothes indoors all release water vapour which is what causes the problem. Try to reduce moisture at source by ventilating the rooms where it is being released. But if condensation is still an issue, try these tactics: (a) keep your home continuously heated to a moderate level, with spot heating where needed; and (b) air the whole house or flat for a short period after intense vapour-generating activities. Condensation on windows is almost inevitable but if you wipe it off you will reduce the risk of mould growing on the window-frames.

Radiant electric heaters should be protected with a fire-screen if there are children or other vulnerable people in the vicinity.

Finally: I gave a talk with more detail on this subject in 2022 and there is a link to the recording, including a question-and-answer session, at http://fodlibdems.org.uk/home-energy