Heating and powering a single home in Basingstoke and Deane causes about 3,930 kilograms of carbon emissions a year.
If you’re thinking about greening your home, house about starting with these ideas?
Think inside the box.
Together, these small, low-cost things you can do inside your home could cut a quarter off your home emissions (more than 1,000 kilograms of carbon) and £325 off your energy bills.
Speedy showers (four minutes or less)
Saves 180 kilograms of carbon and £70 a year.
That’s the length of quite a few songs. You could sing one to keep time, if you like. Anyone who accuses you of spending too long in the bathroom will thank you for it… even if they don’t quite love your voice.
Slay energy vampires
Saves 45 kilograms of carbon and £55 a year.
Appliances like your TV drain power even when they’re not in use. But driving a wooden stake into these vampires is a radical fix and we’d probably suggest just switching them off. Your choice though.
Don’t get ready to tumble
Saves 432 kilograms of carbon and £60 a year.
Avoid the tumble dryer, if you can, and dry your clothes on the rack or line instead. Apart from cutting carbon, it’s also much harder to shrink your favourite wool jumper… trust us on that.
Turn down the heat
Saves 340 kilograms of carbon and £100 a year for each degree Celsius you turn the heating down by.
Don’t do this if you live with young children or vulnerable adults. Otherwise, pop on a jumper (the snazzier the better) and turn down the thermostat by a degree.
Every drop counts
Using less water means less water overall needs to be made safe for drinking, reducing emissions, and it can also save you money.
South East Water, Thames Water and Southern Water supply local homes. Each gives out free water-saving devices and advice to customers.
Lighten up
Saves 25 kilograms of carbon and £20 a year.
Swapping out old halogen bulbs for LED lightbulbs is a bright idea, if we do say so ourselves.
Making a
BIGGER
impact.
So you’re doing the smaller bits and now you want to make a big impact at home. Great stuff. Take a look at these.
Together, these actions could cut about 3,000 kilograms of home emissions and £600 off your energy bill.
You might be able to get help to pay for some of these changes.
Never too late to insulate
Fully insulating a home that currently has little to no insulation could save around 725 kilograms of carbon and £310 a year.
Just like you, your home uses less energy to stay warm if it’s wrapped up well. The website below has a few ideas for how you could insulate your home.
Pump up the heat
It depends how else you’ve made your home more efficient, but an air source heat pump could save up to 2,300 kilograms of carbon and £275 a year.
More efficient than gas boilers, air source and ground source heat pumps can slash average emissions from heating and powering the average home by more than half.
Are we missing anything?