Is a wood burner going to cut your energy costs?

There is an energy crisis going on in Scotland. Gas and Electricity prices have sky rocketed and for so many in the Central Belt, this Christmas is going to be a financial challenge.

There has been countless suggestions on how to cut your energy costs online from buying an air fryer (if you can get your hands on one) to using an electric blanket (if you can find one in stock) to turning to the method that our ancestors used to keep warm – fire.

Yes that is right, many people have turned to a wood burner or open fire place to keep them warm and while this may seem like a good idea at first, there are some things to be aware of.
Firstly, this is, in general, not a more efficient way of heating your home. In fact, burning wood will actually cost you more. The extra costs will differ depending on what type of home you live in and of course what type of fire you have. A cast iron wood burning fire is relatively efficient. In fact some have an energy efficiency of around 80%. An open fire place however looses a lot of its heat up the chimney pipe.

To burn a wood burner, you of course need wood. A bag of wood in a supermarket such as Tesco is around £7.50. If you burn through that bag in just a couple of days, you are spending around £3.75 a day on burning wood. If you did that everyday of the week, that is £26.25 which over a month is £116.25.

You might not be thinking ‘but wait, that is less than by current gas bill so it must be cheaper’. But you need to also take into account that you will need hot water for the taps and that the fire you are burning is only for X number of hours in the evening. What about when you wake in the morning, come home from work or turn on the gas hob to cook tea? It can’t all be replaced by burning wood. There is also the additional costs of fire lighters, kindling and the obvious smoke pollution issue in a day of age where we are trying to get to net zero.

A modern gas boiler is incredibly efficient and while we all want our gas bills to be lower, the simply truth of the matter is that currently, it is still the best way to heat your home.

There are of course ways that you can reduce the amount of gas you use in a month. We have written about it before but to make things easier for you, here are some top tips on how to reduce your gas consumption and lower your monthly energy bills.

1 – Reduce heat loss

The less heat your home looses, the more effectively it can heat your home.  So keep doors shut, drafts down and keep doors that lead to the outside closed as quickly as possible. Keep curtains shut as soon as the sun goes down, not just when you are going to bed.  And if you want to take it to the next level, you can always add more insulation to your home to trap the heat in for longer.

2 – Reduce heat absorption

What do we mean by this?  Well if you have a couch right in front of the radiator then the radiator is using a lot of energy to heat the couch rather than the room.  If you can, create some space between the radiator and the rest of the room so you can allow the heat to flow more freely.

3 – Cut down on gas sapping things

Who doesn’t love a good bath?  Well if you are serious about reducing your gas bills then cut a few baths out of your life and replace them with a nice hot shower instead. And when you do have a bath, if you find you are adding lots of cold water to cool the bath down after you have run it then turn down the thermostat on the boiler for hot water.  You obviously don’t need it that hot – you are just wasting energy.

4 – Boiler Servicing

We say it time and time again.  A serviced boiler will run cleaner and more efficiently than one that hasn’t been serviced.  Yes a boiler service costs money but it is only £65 +VAT and it also comes with added peace of mind that your boiler will be running reliably this winter.

5 – Invest in a smart meter

A smart meter can help you make significant savings on your energy bill. If you know you are going to be late home, a normal thermostat will still come on at the specified time.  But with a smart thermostat, you can delay it by a couple of hours.  That is a couple of hours of not needing to heat your home.  Times that by four or five similar occasions when you are not going to be home when you thought you were during the month and it all adds up to big savings.

6 – Put on a jumper

If you are walking around your home in shorts and a t-shirt complaining that it is too cold – don’t turn the thermostat up, put on a jumper.

7 – Get a new boiler

If you have a new boiler (and by that, we mean a new boiler in the last few years) then you can ignore this point.  But if you have a boiler that is over ten years old then pay attention.  Yes, installing a new boiler does cost money but if you are going to be living in your home for a few more years then you can get a return on your investment because modern gas boilers are so efficient.

Find out more

We can’t tell you to put on a jumper but we can do a really good job of installing and servicing boilers. So if you know that your current boiler is costing you a small fortune then lets get it sorted.

Call us today for boiler install quotes, servicing and maintenance including strip down boiler servicing.