GREEN ENERGY IN WINTER – SWITCH TO OCTOPUS ENERGY

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Octopus Emergy heat pump

THE GREEN APPROACH TO KEEPING WARM THIS WINTER – COULD A HEAT PUMP BE THE NEXT STEP?

I hate being cold but I try and stay cosy without it costing the earth. Quite literally I try and save money while also being aware of my energy consumption.   With a young family, this isn’t always that easy but there are some simple steps you can take to make sure you are taking care of your bills and your carbon footprint. Have you considered an Octopus heat pump? That’s next on the list for us, fingers crossed.

5 WAYS TO KEEP WARM THIS WINTER AND STAY GREEN

Use Thermostats Appropriately

This may sound obvious but being aware of how your thermostat works and knowing how to turn down the heat automatically at times when you are not home can save you a small fortune. I recently moved into a new house and assumed I understood my thermostat. I was wrong!!  The times that I assumed my heating was off it was in fact still on. All be it at a reduced temperature but it was on.  Thanks to a service engineer I reworked my times and dramatically reduced my bill.  I was so excited that I knocked on my neighbour’s door to explain how the thermostat controls work. (just in case they had been misguided too 🙂 So just a quick check or adjustment could make a big difference!

I also found that I could get away with having my hot water on for considerably less time. If you have a fairly new tank it should take just an hour to heat up a full tank of water. It should also stay warm most of the day. I did a test and halved my hot water heating time and we saw NO difference in access to hot water. Another fab saving for the family budget.

With tech in mind, you can take this to another level with Tado for instance and make it much more specific. Octopus has an offer at the moment with smart heating thermostats from Tado.  I have them throughout my house and they have helped lower my bills by zoning areas of the house we only want to heat for a small part of the day.

With a heat pump installed, we’d be able to make use of the large hot water tank that we have preinstalled in the house. At least when the time comes to convert over from gas that will be one item we won’t need.

Layer up

It may sound obvious but dancing around in your shorts and t-shirt may keep you warm but once you sit down you will feel the chill. We love wool sweaters and cosy socks.  I also leave a few woolly blankets on the sofa to snuggle up in the evening.

Stop the draft

If you can feel a draft block it. It doesn’t have to be a fancy draft excluder. We love Home Bargains (which is a little like the “old” Woolworths) and Dunelm. You can get lots of fun draft excluders and most are under £5. Keeping the heat you have paid for is the key.

My biggest nag at home is closing doors! I keep all doors closed in the rooms we use the most. The kitchen especially is a little haven if you keep doors closed after cooking dinner.

Open and Close Curtains

Another great green way to keep your house warm is simply to open your curtains when the sun is shining and close them at night when it gets dark.  It isn’t rocket science but if you have blinds as well as curtains it is something you may overlook.  Doing this allows the sun to heat the room in the day whilst retaining heat that may escape at night.

Ditching gas and switching to a heap pump.

This is something you can easily overlook but the biggest impact you can have to your carbon footprint is to switch to green energy. You can wear woollies all winter long and open and close curtains but the biggest impact you can have is to make sure your energy is green.

We switched from British Gas to Octopus Energy in early 2018. I had been with them for 10 years!!  Not only did we save money but we now use 100% green energy. In my defense ten years ago 80% of Britain’s energy came from coal and gas. Times have now changed and green energy can be accessed far easier.   It can be confusing, however, when you are researching green energy. How can gas associated with central heating be green? The answer is simply by using biogas or using a company that offset the carbon emotions.

We now have 100% green energy and we couldn’t be happier. Nothing has changed except our supplier and our energy bills.

In the longer term, we would love to install an Octopus heat pump. Then we could ditch the gas completely. At the moment I heat my hot water from either solar or off-peak electricty but we are still reliant on gas for our central heating. A heat pump is the obvious next step on our electrification journey.

Summary

Grab some great woolly sweaters, stock up on a few bottles of red wine and get ready to hibernate. Don’t feel guilty about using the heating when you have to. It is vital for us with a young family but try and make some considered choices when turning the heat on.

When the time is right you can look to a heat pump. With government incentives in many instances, it is cheaper than installing a new gas boiler. 

Keep safe and warm this winter.

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Switch to Octopus Energy – A drop in the Ocean!

OCTOPUS ENERGY SWITCH

OCTOPUS ENERGY SWITCH

THE ENERGY PRICE CAP DROP COMES INTO EFFECT IN OCTOBER 2019

Last week Ofgem, the energy regulator for England, Wales, and Scotland announced that annual energy bills will go down by £75 on average for 11 million households on standard tariffs and by £25 for customers who pay for their gas and electricity upfront. The new caps will be £1,179 for default tariffs, including standard variable tariffs, and £1,217 for pre-payment meters.

You don’t get something for nothing!

It’s a phrase, my father used quite often. If something seems too good to be true there is usually a catch! In this case, the price cap drop is a definite win for the consumer who makes no attempt to shop around for a deal. By doing nothing their energy bill will drop BUT the price cap has dropped because fuel prices have dropped and Ofgem, quite rightly is protecting the consumer especially those stuck on a standard rate due to energy debt.

The catch here is that by simply shopping around and coming off a standard rate many customers could save more than three times the price drop.

Stephen Murray, energy expert at MoneySuperMarket warns that “Crucially, there are more than 100 cheaper tariffs available to consumers in the market today. That means someone switching today could secure a deal that delivers three times the saving the price cap offers while protecting themselves from this rollercoaster of price fluctuations every six months. It’s a no-brainer.”

WHAT DO I SUGGEST?

At this point, you would expect me to recommend Octopus Energy and a  specific tariff but although I could I’d just say get off a standard rate and simply switch! Switch to a deal, tell your friends and your family. Help older relatives make a simple switch to a deal that gets them off the standard rate.  The price cap protects those who should be saving far more!

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As a mum with a young family every penny counts and although time is precious and I know we don’t have time for all money-saving ideas this is one that just takes can’t be ignored.  It takes two minutes to switch and you will put more money in your family’s pocket.

If you can switch to a green energy provider like Octopus you will be saving both the planet and your pocket. This time there is no catch. It really is a win, win switching to renewable energy.

octopus eNERGYWe switched from British Gas in spring 2018 to the Octopus Energy.  I did loads of research before switching and we finally agreed on a fixed tariff for 12 months. We wanted to make sure we could budget following a house move. We are now on a slightly different deal where the prices fluctuate but we still have the super green tariff.  We don’t have a smart meter. We don’t have solar panels (although they are on a wishlist) and sadly we don’t own an electric car. (just a bike 🙂  For these reasons, we are sticking with a simple and cheap green energy deal rather than one of the smart tariffs for now.  This may change as I would love to try and use most of our energy off-peak. We have a young family so it isn’t always that easy but we are seriously thinking of giving it a go!

 

IF YOU ARE ON A STANDARD ENERGY TARIFF TAKE TWO MINUTES TO STOP OVERPAYING. YOU WOULDN’T KNOWINGLY OVERPAY FOR ANYTHING ELSE.

Posted by Sarah at www.www.octopusreferral.link

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Octopus Energy: Led light bulbs

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octopus energy cashback

THE LIGHTBULB MOMENT SAVING CO2.

I am really trying to reduce my carbon footprint and of course, save money.  So I invested in LED light bulbs but not any old LED’s. I have gone for the Philips Hue bulbs.

I have bought the starter set, which comes with the hub (which you have to have) and 3 colour changingLED LIGHT BULBS bulbs.   They were so simple to set up.  You simply download the app, plug the hub into your modem and locate the light bulbs on the app. The hub detects the bulbs and sends a signal to the app. I have my Philips Hue colour changing LED bulbs around my garden and over the front porch. I have them set to come on at sunset and go off at sunrise. They have worked amazingly well! The app even knows when sunset and sunrise are depending on the seasons.   Most of the year they are on white and cost very little to have on all night. The quirky thing is at Christmas, Halloween or on any occasion you can change the colour to reflect the mood. So at Christmas, I had mine on in red and green.  They were very pretty and saved putting the light Christmas up outside.

I now also have them in various lamps around the house. To save money I have the Philips Hue LED bulbs in tones of white. The bulbs are then cheaper to buy as you can get them on offer if you keep an eye on Amazon.

The good thing is while you’re away from home you can use the hue light bulbs as security lights too.  They are really great. If you switching to LED and you want to invest a little extra I can highly recommend them.

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GREEN ENERGY IN WINTER – SWITCH TO OCTOPUS ENERGY

THE GREEN APPROACH TO KEEPING WARM THIS WINTER – COULD A HEAT PUMP BE THE NEXT STEP? I hate being
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Octopus Energy Switch – Can your actions make a difference to climate change?

I know what I hold dear to me but can my actions really make a difference? This is how the

OCTOPUS ENERGY REVIEW: MOST RECOMMENDED SUPPLIER 2019

Octopus Energy USwitch winner 2019 After reading lots of customer reviews I switched to Octopus Energy because they offer amazing

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