It’s no secret to my friends and family that Martin Lewis money saving has somewhat taken over my life – at least when it comes to financial decision making.
I use the bank account Martin Lewis suggested, I have the mobile phone tariff Martin’s Money Saving Expert flagged up and this year I’ve been following the hottest Martin Lewis heating and energy bill tips – and saved an absolute fortune on my gas and electricity to boot.
Martin regularly issues all manner of money savings tips, and being a tight Yorkshireman anyway, two that caught my eye revolve around boilers and heating.
Martin Lewis says that those with a combi boiler – which is most people – usually have two settings too high: the flow rate, and the temperature of the thermostat.
Speaking on one of his podcasts way back, Martin said: “If you have a gas combi boiler, which is the type most homes have, the flow rate on most of those boilers are set too high as a default.
“The flow rate is the temperature of the water that circulates around the system. If it’s too high, the boiler isn’t operating to maximum efficiency. So changing your flow rate can cut gas bills by over nine per cent and you won’t notice a change.
“It might take a tiny bit longer to heat up but go and try it. Take the Money Saving Boiler Challenge which will give you step-by-step instructions on what to do on your boiler. I’ve been talking about this for six weeks or so and lots of people have said it’s made a big difference and they don’t notice it.
“So it changes your bill but doesn’t change your home.”
The second tip from Martin is about the thermostat, ie the temperature you set your heating to come on at home.
He said: “Say your thermostat is currently set at 21 degrees and you’re dropping it to 20 degrees, that sounds like it’s not very much. But of course, we’re just comparing it to zero degrees, which is an arbitrary figure.
“In reality, your house may only be heating from 16 degrees up to 21 degrees, and in that case dropping from 21 down to 20 is a fifth of the energy usage, it’s 20 percent of the energy usage. Which is why dropping by one degree can have a really big impact.”
Heeding this advice, I went and checked my boiler’s flow rate. It’s a relatively new Worcester Bosch model, after the old one packed in two years after I bought my house, just as winter was starting.
The temperature for hot water was set to an alarming 80C by default, so I knocked that right down to 55C (any colder than 50C, I’m told, runs the risk of Legionnaires’ Disease because the water isn’t hot enough to kill bacteria).
I then went and knocked my Hive thermostat down from 20C standard to 18C.
At the time, my energy bill was £210 a month from E.On. Despite my fix ending in September and prices increasing slightly on the unit rate on my new fix, E.On has now cut my monthly bill from £210 to £150, a saving of £70 a month or £840 a year – because I’m no longer using as much as I used to.
Honestly, I put this down to the heating changes I’ve made, along with swapping a few leftover Halogen lights for LED in a couple of rooms.
Thanks, Martin.
