A DIY expert has shared her top tips for reducing energy bills and saving money.
All you need is a cheap item that you might already have knocking about at home, and if you don’t it will only cost you £1.
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Millions of Brits are facing higher energy bills within weeks, making energy saving measures more important than ever to cut costs.
Laura de Barra, an interiors author and influencer, told users on TikTok about how they can create a draught excluder using just a pair of tights.
You can end up spending more than you need to on your energy because of cracks around doors and windows, especially if you live in an older home.
Cold air from outside can get in and the warmth from your heating can easily escape.
It means you can end up putting your heating on for longer or at a higher temperature just to keep warm, and that’s adding more to your bill.
A draught excluder is one super simple way to block heat escaping and cold air coming in and you don’t have to fork out a fortune for one.
De Barra, who’s racked up thousands of views in the post about tips for keeping your home warm, said: “It’s more important than ever that people learn how to make their homes warmer and not at massive cost, and realistically reduce their bills.
Draughts can come up through floorboards, from under doors and around windows.
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“For doors and windows, this is going to be your best friend. A homemade draught excluder. All it is, is a leg of an old pair of tights and I’ve stuffed it with old rags.
You can use clothes, toweling, tights, tea towels, whatever. You just have to make sure that what they are filled with is quite dense to stop that air from leaving and stop air coming in.
If you don’t have a pair of old tights around, you can get them for as little as £1 from Boots.
For floorboards she suggest getting a rug, and a flat weaver rug is better for two reasons, she said – it’s cheaper, you get much more rug for much less money, and the denser the rug the less air can come up through it.
Draught excluders are “amazing on internal doors and can work on the front door as well” she said, but she warns it might not be the best option for your front door.
She said: “If you’ve got a big gap under your front door and every time you leave the house, this [tights draught excluder] isn’t going to sit against it and cold air is going to be coming in the whole time you’re at work.
Instead you can get excluders with a brush underneath which fit to the door directly and can be cut to size if you get plastic, rather than metal.
You can also pick these up fairly cheaply, and we found them to buy online for around £5 from several DIY stores.
If you’re renting and can’t attach things to the door, de Barra suggests using command strips, which are adhesive strips that can be removed later with no damage.
£4 “double glazing” trick
The TikTok star, who has nearly 30,000 followers, also suggested how renters stuck in draughty homes with no double glazing can still make their home warmer without major work or costs.
She said: “The last flat I lived in was over 100 years old, single glazed windows, ground floor and was absolutely freezing. There was no modern insulation there. The heat we were paying for was just leaving the building.”
She used a special film to create a double glazing effect. It looks like cling film, but is specially designed to be warmed up using a hairdryer when attached to the window.
It creates a tight seal over the pane of glass that stops draughts coming through and creates an insulating barrier.
“I swear by these and people don’t talk about them enough,” she said.
De Barra recommends checking reviews online when buying the film, which you can buy online from around £4, though the exact cost will depend on how much you need.
“It’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways to keep you insulated,” she added.
Save cash insulating your home
Draught-proofing your home could help you save £200 a year on your energy bills, experts estimate.
The amount you could save will depend on how draughty your house already and what preventative measures you’ve already taken to stop heat escaping from your home.
Energy bills are on the rise thanks to rocketing wholesale costs and you can no longer beat high costs by switching providers.
Energy providers often used to compete on fixed deal prices, but suppliers can no longer afford to offer them.
Millions of households are now on default tariffs subject to the price cap, which will push up the average dual fuel bill by nearly £700 in April.
How much more you’ll pay depends on how much energy you use, so reducing your use is one of the only ways you can get a cheaper bill right now.
Other ways to improve your insulation at home and reduce your bill include.
- Double glazing. Upgrading your windows and doors won’t just improve your home’s energy performance, it can reduce noise too
- Loft insulation. It’s easy to install, inexpensive and can make a huge difference to your bills. Install loft insulation that’s at least 270mm thick
- Wall insulation. Whether your home has cavity or solid walls, insulating them can improve your EPC rating and you might qualify for help with the costs
- Replace your boiler. You can cut your energy bills with a new, energy-efficient boiler.
- An efficient secondary heating source. Installing a wood-burning stove instead of an open fireplace can give you greater fuel efficiency and reduced costs in the long run.
Some measures might cost more than the £1 pair of tights, so you’ll want to work out first if spending money now will help you save in the long term.
Lower income households may be able to take advantage of grants of up to £10,000 from councils to improve energy efficiency.
Households looking to make energy improvements will be able to get a grant worth £5,000 to help cover the costs.
Here are more tricks for saving energy in every part of your home.
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