It is important to get overall household energy use into perspective to understand where to cut costs and when to invest in new equipment. The first pie chart shows the major components of energy use in the average UK house. Heating your home clearly dominates, followed by heating water. Electrical appliances and cooking are relatively low energy use in your house. (It should be noted that in reality when considering the inefficiencies of power generation that the actual energy use of electrical appliance is higher),
The second chart shows the relative costs assuming that Gas is used to cook, heat the house and heat the water. The cost contribution from electrical appliance is higher than the "in house" energy use; this is simply because electricity is much more expensive per kWh than gas.
The conclusions are apparent; to really save some money where you live the first focus should be on heating, hot water and insulating against heat loss. Most of this area of the site compares the various heating and water options, and looks at insulation. The objective is to help to inform choice on what is best to do in your circumstances, to save money and sensibly invest.
