Energy saving tips
The government's Energy Bill Relief Scheme came into effect on Saturday (1st of October). This is to support businesses and charities (including early years settings) with the rises in energy prices. You can see the full details here, but although this reduces the anticipated increases, costs will still go up significantly. Whether you pay for your own energy or it’s included in your rent, you will need to look to ways to reduce your energy use – and of course it’s good for the environment too!
Last year a lot of settings spent a lot of time outside to minimise the spread of Covid. Not only is it good infection control, excellent for children’s development and behaviour but it’s also a great way of reducing energy costs as for the most part you aren’t using any power while you’re out there!
Here are a few suggestions – you’ve probably thought of most of them already but it’s worth being reminded.
Audit your energy use
As many settings are in shared buildings with bills included, you may not have access to bills or be able to monitor your consumption but you can still go round the setting systematically and look to establish where you could be using a lot of energy.
You could create a plan of the setting marking where you have appliances and rate them for (estimated) energy use (high/medium/low). Then you can see if there are ways that you can reduce their use or whether it would be more cost effective to find an alternative.
If you do control your energy contract, do you have a smart meter? If so you could even get the children involved in working out what is power hungry!
Get smart with heating (and aircon if you have it)
Consider when the heating is on and see if you can adjust it down both in terms of temperature and the time that it’s on for. It might take a few weeks to work out the optimum time for it to come on in the morning for opening up to be warm and welcoming. Could you set it to turn off a little bit earlier? It will usually take a while for a building to cool down so it doesn’t necessarily need to be on until the end of the session. Also think about how you use your rooms. If you are always outside until mid morning do you need the room warm until then? If you have active sessions in the course of the day can you schedule those to coincide with cooler periods in the building.
Are you loosing a lot of heat? There’s a balance with having free flow between inside and outside. One of our PMGs is in a purpose built setting with large bi-fold doors. We realised that it was hard to keep warm with the doors open so we installed some PVC strip curtains to help keep in heat while maintaining access. If you want details of who we used please get in touch!
If your building is old and draughty are there things that could be done to reduce heat loss?
Last year was all about keeping ventilation up to control the spread of Covid, and we still need to do that to an extent. This is about ensuring that you are getting the most out of your heating and controlling where the airflow is. That might mean that you open the windows at certain times in the day to ‘flush’ the air through, or it might be that you decide your windows/doors are always open and actually everyone just needs to add an extra layer!
Lighting
Energy saving light bulbs can make a big difference in energy consumption. If you have your own space consider replacing bulbs (either on mass or as the current ones come to the end of their lives) for LED ones. If you share a building perhaps you can raise it with other users/owners.
Warm and Dry
Obviously we need to provide the best environment for our children and also our staff. Damp clothing can make everyone feel uncomfortable and colder so it’s a good idea to consider what you can do about this. For children having good waterproof trousers/coats or puddle suits can make a big difference, along with wellies, duck boots, or even snow boots which keep the feet a bit warmer too. Some of our settings have done fundraising events to purchase these for the settings rather than asking parents to provide them.
We provide our staff with waterproof trousers and jackets as part of their uniform. Perhaps this is something that you might like to consider if funds allow.
If you’re worried about getting things dry then a heated dryer (often available in Lidl or Aldi at some point in the Autumn) can be a cost effective way of doing this. They cost a few pence per hour to run and can be very effective.
A warm drink at snack time if you’ve been out in the damp can also be very welcome. Some of our settings offer warm milk or even sometimes a hot chocolate. There’s nothing more exciting than a hot drink sat on a log outside!
Hot water
Usually there is a thermostat for hot water, could this be turned down slightly? Do you have a boiler or gas combi? If using a boiler, what are the timings, could this be shortened to optimise usage time? Does it need re lagging?
Washing
If not greatly soiled, could a shorter cycle suffice? Lower your wash temperature – modern detergents mean that generally you don’t need to wash on more than 300. Always do a full load. This might mean that you need to rotate resources until you’ve got one! If you have a tumble drier think about if you really need to use it.
Overall auditing our energy use is a good idea regardless of cost increases as we know that the less energy they use, the better for the environment. If you can get children involved in auditing that’s a great learning opportunity and you’ll be helping to support the next generation of eco warriers!
