With the cost of living crisis continuing to hit households across the country, many will be looking for ways to help save on expenses. However, with some simple checks around your home, Brits could save as much as £767 a year on energy bills.
From October 2022, the price cap is forecast to jump to £3,549 per year for dual fuel in an average household. The rise means people could be losing up to £1,253 a year to the 'phantom load' in your home increasing up costs without you even realising it.
One of the biggest energy wasting culprits sucking up your money at home is the heating being left on while you're out at work - which could total a whopping £1,355 to an annual bill after October, a jump from £616 per year, Birmingham Live reports.
READ MORE: Cost of living crisis: Full list of energy bill help if you're struggling
The second biggest power drain is electric underfloor heating. Leaving this on for an extra hour a day could cost you from £309 to £567 a year.
Many of these sort of culprits are often left running in the background without you realising or remembering, causing your meter display to tick over by the minute. Such 'always-on' appliances are otherwise known as the 'Phantom Load' and they account for a third of an average energy bill.
Currently, a Phantom Load of 275w will set you back £683, but from October, this will jump to £1,253. By undergoing some simple changes and checks around the house however, this could easily be reduced to 100w and yield a saving of £434 - and by October, this saving would be worth £797.
If the price cap were to shoot up again and prices increase by another 20 per cent in January 2023, these changes would equate to a whopping £957 saving.
How to reduce the Phantom Load
Some things like fridges and freezers must stay on all the time. The best advice for these appliances is to focus on efficiency and running costs when it's time to replace them. An older or less efficient model could easily cost twice or three times as much to run as the most efficient models.
You may already be aware that appliances continue to drain energy, even when left on standby. However, while it's sensible to turn things off rather than leave them on standby, the bigger energy stealers are the things that are left on all the time, either intentionally or accidentally. You might leave them on because you don’t realise how much they're costing to run, or accidentally because you’ve just forgotten about them.
Things that fall into these categories include computers, media servers and set-top boxes, plus easy-to-forget things like underfloor heating, heated towel rails and extra drinks fridges.
Common phantom load culprits
Dr. Steve Buckley, Head of Data Science at Loop, says: "Many people I speak to are really worried about their energy bills right now, and sadly the situation is not set to improve for some time yet. The reality is that the only way we can lower our energy bills right now is to reduce the amount of energy we use and the key to that is measuring our use. If you measure it, you can control it. If you measure it, you can see the impact of changes you make."
He pointed out that every unit of wasted energy around your home will cost you over 80 per cent more when the price cap increase takes effect this October.
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