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Tag Archives: Energy saving tips
3 obvious improvements for electric cars
Electric cars are beginning to offer a real economic alternative. Mainstream and premium brand electric cars are becoming cheaper, and have increased range. Also the required surrounding infrastructure (recharging points) is finally being rolled out in our towns and cities. … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Conservation
Tagged efficiency, electric cars, Energy conservation, Energy saving tips, improvements, roads
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Are your wall vents ducted?
There is greater interest at this time of the year in reducing heat loss from our homes and reducing fuel bills. Most home-owners correctly concentrate on the areas of biggest heat loss by upgrading the insulation to their roof, walls or windows. … Continue reading
The right tools: Cutting wood
In a previous post we discussed the importance of only burning dry seasoned firewood. I mentioned that I bought my own firewood, already cut, seasoned and dried for our wood burning stove, click here. However, a few months ago I … Continue reading
Winter is coming
As the actors in the excellent ‘Game of Thrones’ television series are forever saying “Winter is coming”……….in the Northern hemisphere at least. With that in mind remember to check out our previous articles on saving energy and reducing heat loss in your home. I … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Conservation
Tagged cold weather, energy efficiency, Energy saving tips, heating, winter weather
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Green energy options for Irish schools
Many schools in Ireland put a great deal of effort into making their buildings as environmentally friendly as possible. This helps to reduce their energy bills but perhaps more importantly in the longer term, it provides a good example to … Continue reading
Obtaining dry firewood should be a burning desire
As regular readers will know I am an advocate for wood burning stoves as an efficient and environmental friendly way of heating your home, provided of course the timber is from sustainable forests. See here and here for related articles. … Continue reading
Posted in Technical & Discussion
Tagged dry timber, efficiency, Energy saving tips, firewood, moisture content, season wood, stoves, wet timber
1 Comment
How much does my immersion heater cost to heat my water?
Following on from my post about the cost of running an oil boiler to heat the average house, see here. A reader contacted me and asked how much it costs to heat the water in their immersion heater. They remembered when they were young that the biggest sin possible was to leave on the immersion heater by accident, thereby incurring unnecessary costs. The answer is approximately €0.54 or 54 cent if left on for an hour to initially heat the water. Continue reading
Posted in Energy Conservation
Tagged Cost of, Energy conservation, Energy saving tips, hot water tank, immersion heater, Water heaters
2 Comments
The advantages of stoves
If you have an open fire in your home, you should consider replacing it with an enclosed stove (aka closed flue appliance). The saving in fuel to produce the same heat output is incredible. An open fire has an efficiency of around 18%, as the vast majority of the heat simply goes up the chimney. By comparison a quality stove has an efficiency of around 80%. So a stove uses 4 times less fuel to achieve the same heat output. There are other ways the stove saves energy. Continue reading
Posted in Energy Conservation
Tagged energy conservative, energy efficiency, Energy saving tips, flue, heat loss, open fire, stoves
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The relative costs using different fuels to heat your home
In this post the relative costs of using different fuels to heat an average house during an average winters day are compared to see which is the most economical. Based on this process it would seem that the most economical is a wood pellet boiler, if initial capital costs are excluded. Continue reading
The cost of oil fired central heating per hour
In our house we have a boost button on our heating control panel. By hitting this button the boiler will come on immediately for one hour only. This got me thinking, how much does this button cost me every time I push it, or putting it another way how much does your home oil boiler cost in fuel to run every hour? Well it is relatively easy to calculate; I worked it out to be €1.20 per hour or €1.20 every push of the boost button! Continue reading
