News & Guides

  Families are spending up to £86 a year on leaving electrical gadgets plugged in to charge or leaving televisions on standby, a study published today suggests. According to Energy Saving Trust (EST) researchers, families are squandering money on electrical wastage and the impact is being felt on their fuel bills. Even homeowners who Read more...

There are a number of factors that have a major effect on your electrical energy consumption around the home: which tariff you subscribe to, whether you've installed energy efficiency measures such as LED light bulbs and energy meters, and if you and your family are energy smart enough to turn off lights when not in use being chief among Read more...

It's summer, so there are a host of DIY jobs to do. And though decking, edging the lawn and wearing a ridiculous apron while getting stuck into a barbeque should be top of the list, look outside. Just look. So, rainproofing your home: it's not as difficult as you'd think, and an afternoon spent pottering around in the drizzle making Read more...

When you were young and harboured flighty dreams of becoming an astronaut and a vet (SuperVet, the movie of your life would be called), it's likely that, at some point, your mum did pat you on the head and say that you could 'do anything'. "You can do anything, [reader of a website about consumer electrical goods]," she said Read more...

The energy efficiency upgrade given by switching from single to double glazing is 'remarkable', according to comments made this week by an industry expert. Phil Turley, business manager for PVC-u window and door specialist Kommerling UK, said that boosting the glazing that surrounds your home can have fantastic benefits for both heat Read more...

London and many other parts of the UK have recently switched to digital television, so you would think the amount of waste electrical and electronic equipment being collected in the UK would have risen as old televisions become ineffectual. But new figures show this is not the case. According to letsrecycle.com, data published by the Environment Read more...

If smart meters are to be widely adopted and welcomed into homes around the European Union then concerns over privacy must be addressed. This is the view of the European Data Protection Supervisor, which has warned that the devices could reveal sensitive personal data that may be used to 'snoop' on people. For example, the information Read more...

Landlords have a number of concerns to deal with: damp, rogue infestations, and untenable tenants being chief among them. But energy efficiency is clearly not too high up on the to-do list, if a recent survey by the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) is anything to go by. The landlording body found that more than half (51 per cent) of Read more...

The government has this week backed secondary legislation that will greenlight an energy efficiency market as part of the much-vaulted Green Deal, that will see a programme introduced to help bill payers make energy-efficient improvements to their home. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), leaky homes are a primary Read more...

Driving energy bills are still a major concern for many British householders, particularly in light of recent findings published this week by price comparison website uSwitch.com - it predicted fuel bills will become "unaffordable" for 59 per cent of Brits by 2015 if costs continue to escalate at their current rate, which will be a Read more...