Keep an eye on your thermostat to help keep heating costs down this Autumn and Winter
Be reassured, there are some easy tricks to helping manage your energy bills
Spiralling energy costs are a worry for all of us right now. With Autumn just around the corner, meaning shorter, cooler days, and no let-up in sight to gas prices rising, many are (rightly) concerned about what their heating bills will look like over the coming months. For older people living alone, often on a pension and with no option to work to supplement their fixed income, the worry is even more acute.
It’s a strange irony that in the wake of a record-breaking heatwave we’re suddenly panicking about staying warm.
It was only back in June that we posted this blog, outlining the dangers of heatstroke and dehydration, with advice on how our system’s temperature monitoring function could help you avoid your house over-heating. The point about keeping an eye on your home’s warmth stands the same, but now for another reason – being too cold can be hugely dangerous to your health, and keeping your home at a sensible, constant temperature can also help you save money.
Cold homes are bad news
The brilliant Centre for Ageing Better recently commissioned research that found nearly half a million homes lived in by a person aged 55 or older are excessively cold. They have a campaign to improve housing stock in the UK for older people – it’s well worth a read and you can find it here. (Interestingly they say that fixing the heating issues with older people’s homes could save the NHS over £300m a year, but that’s a topic for another blog).
The Centre for Ageing Better also say that UK households with older occupants spend around twice as much on energy as younger households and were twice as likely to be living in draughty homes.
Getting older invariably means we feel the cold more – it’s a fact of life. But when you’re worrying about the size of the gas bill that will be landing on your doormat it can be tempting to switch the heating right down – or off – and think twice before putting on your electric fire or heater.
Consistency is good
Keeping your home at a constant temperature can help to save you money – through not having to re-heat the house after letting it get cold. Heating a home that’s gone cold is more energy intensive than maintaining a constant temperature.
It’s also so worth giving some thought to how warm you need your house to be. Some people like their homes to be very warm indeed, others not so much. However you prefer it, Energy Advice recommend that you turn down your thermostat by one degree and see how you feel a day later. If it’s ok do the same again – just one degree less will immediately impact your energy bills, a few degrees will save you even more.
Which? has produced a brilliant guide outlining 10 ways you can make your home more energy efficient – including at number 6 the point that central heating controls can save you a significant amount of money each year.
How do I monitor my independently living elderly relative?
You might be aware of the temperature monitoring function as part of the StackCare system. People who are monitoring elderly parents remotely using StackCare will be able to see at a glance just how warm or cool their friend or elderly relative’s house is on their mobile phone.
The system also monitors levels of activity through its motion sensor so you can check to make sure your elderly relative living alone is up and about, not staying in bed all day in a bid to keep warm!
Supporting independently living elderly people in their homes is always important, but when something as worrying as soaring energy costs is on their mind it’s even more so. It can be tempting for them to switch off the heating, or not use the oven, but staying warm and healthy are as crucial as ever. There are some good hints and tips in the links above that could well help save money – give them a read and see if there are any quick fixes you could try – as they say, every little helps.
