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Household Bills

Insulation could save households £220 a year

Tahmina Mannan
Written By:
Tahmina Mannan
Posted:
Updated:
15/04/2013

UK households could save £220 every year on their energy bills by improving their insulation.

Calculations based on official Department of Energy and Climate Change and Energy Saving Trust figures, show that insulating all currently un-insulated walls and lofts in Britain’s existing housing stock could save the nation around £5.9bn.

Ian Rock, author of the Home Insulation Manual, said: “Energy prices have rocketed by up to 50% since September 2010, and look set to continue rising for the foreseeable future.

“But rather than passively relying on ‘top down’ schemes, such as the Green Deal, enormous numbers of UK households have DIY capabilities – and with the right guidance should be able to carry out a wide range of thermal improvement works.

“But there’s a right way and a wrong way to insulate. What’s right for one type of property can be positively damaging for another. And until now much of the available information has been either highly sales-driven, bafflingly complex, or just plain wrong.

“Mobilising Britain’s DIY armies is the key to making millions of homes energy efficient and cheaper to run. And by cutting the cost of labour and contractors’ profit margins, payback periods can be dramatically shortened.”

This comes as a whole host of energy suppliers have, over the past few months, introduced higher prices on their energy plans.

The energy industry says the hikes are due to increases in wholesale prices stemming from gas shortages caused by the extended winter and the coldest March for 50 years.

Experts have warned that household energy bills could increase later this year as a result.