When you think about saving energy around the home, the bathroom may be at the back of your mind.
After all, you only use the bathroom for the toilet, bath or shower. You don’t sit in there with the TV and lights on all evening like you might do in a living room, and you’re definitely not cooking meals in there like the kitchen.
However, water consumption contributes towards household bills and carbon emissions. As does the use of showers, lights and other electrical devices like shavers and extractor fans. All of which, can quickly add up, especially in a busy household.
By updating your bathroom and making some changes, in some cases even just small changes, you can have a real impact on your energy usage and bills. And we want to help you do just that.
Here are seven energy-saving tips for your bathroom this year.
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1. Change Up Your Shower
One of the best things you can do to save energy is to replace an inefficient showerhead with a more efficient one. There are lots of affordable and more eco-friendly shower heads out there that reduce the amount of water and spray pattern. This helps you to use less water each time you shower.
Another way to shake up your shower routine and save energy is to invest in a timer. There are water-resistant timers you can get that stick to the wall or fit nicely in the cubicle with you. By trying to reduce showers to an average of four minutes, the typical household can save up to £100 a year.
2. Ditch the Tub Altogether
We’ve mentioned the showerhead, but we’re going to take it one step further. If you don’t have a shower, or you have both a shower and a bath, it might be better to ditch the tub for good.
This could mean removing your tub and installing a lovely new shower instead. This is obviously a much bigger renovation project, but one that will pay dividends over the years. Or, if you prefer to keep the tub, simply reduce the number of times this is used by ensuring you have an appealing and easy-to-use shower.
3. Give Your Taps Some Tlc
Have you got a tap that’s been dripping for as long as you can remember? If so, let this be the year you finally do something about it.
Leaky taps waste thousands of litres of water each year, a needless waste as you can easily fix or replace your taps. It may be as simple as changing the washers or you may wish to upgrade your taps to completely new fittings.
You might also wish to consider fitting a tap aerator. This can reduce the amount of water you use and can be as simple as attaching a small gadget to your existing taps.
4. Don’t Flush Your Money Down The Toilet
Nowadays, there are loads of different flushing options for toilets in order to use less water, so it might be time to upgrade your toilet to a more modern system. For example, toilets with dual flushes can help to save money and energy and if you don’t want to buy an entirely new toilet, you could always install a converter instead.
Another option is to invest in a cistern displacement device. This goes into the existing toilet cistern and inflates when you flush the toilet. This can save you around a litre or two of water each time you flush.
5. Install An Electric Towel Rail
If you don’t already have an electric towel rail in your bathroom, it might be time to invest. For one thing, these can be a great way to warm or dry towels, as well as items of clothing, which is lovely in the winter.
But more than this, the rail can be used to heat the bathroom, without the need to have the central heating system on. This is good news as most heated rails don’t require as much electricity to run as conventional radiators or heating systems.
Not only that, but they come with an off switch, so you don’t have to leave them running constantly. They can be turned on and off as required.
6. Switch Up Your Lights
If you’ve got an older bathroom, you might be using traditional or outdated bulbs or energy-sucking lights. However, switching these to LED lights or more energy-efficient bulbs can save as much as £65 a year on your electricity bills.
It’s also important that you (and those in your household) remember to turn these lights off when the room is not being used. This applies to other items like electrical devices and fans. These should be turned off or unplugged when they are not in use.
If you’re worried about the ability of your household to turn the lights on and off – a common problem when you’ve got children or teens in the house – there is another solution. Installing lights on motion sensors or timers means they will go off automatically when no one is using the room.
You could even upgrade to a system that links your lights and extraction fan together, so the fan will only run when the lights are on and the room is being used. That way, the fan will go off automatically when the lights are turned off after you leave the bathroom.
7. Install Smart Home Apps
Finally, modern technology has opened us up to so many possibilities, one of those being the opportunity to monitor energy usage and spending from our smartphones or devices. Installing these apps and devices in your bathroom can be a convenient way to make the room more energy efficient.
For example, some of these apps allow you to monitor the temperature and pressure of your water and how much electricity is used on an average day. This can inspire you to make positive changes.
Alternatively, smart devices can be installed which means you can control the shower, lights and more from your phone. Let’s say you’re at work and you notice your teenager has left the bathroom light on, you can turn this off remotely, rather than having to wait until you get home to discover the lights are still on.
There are lots of different smart devices available for your bathroom right now, so do some careful research to see which would be most beneficial for your household.