In the context of the current gas crisis, the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center has thought about simple methods that anyone who heats with gas can save. As a rule, you don't even have to make a big sacrifice. Hardly anyone seriously wants to follow Economic Minister Habeck's tip to just take a cold shower or a much shorter shower – especially in winter.
Save gas when showering
Nevertheless, the first tip has something to do with the topic of showering. It doesn't have to be the ice-cold shower. However, according to calculations by consumer advocates, in a two-person household with five eight-minute showers per week, lowering the temperature from 38 to 37 degrees can save 80 kWh per year. Reducing to 35 degrees would save more than 250 kWh. If you reduce the shower time by just one minute instead of the temperature, you save around 200 kWh – and water.
Speaking of saving water: you can use adapters to reduce the flow rate of the shower without sacrificing comfort. And: water that is not used does not have to be heated. An example would be the lion's den startup Puregreen. The water saver costs less than ten euros.
Check windows and doors
Anyone who heats should make sure that windows and doors are tight. This not only means that you ventilate properly (intermittent ventilation instead of tilting the window), but also that the seals deserve their name. You can test this yourself: Open a window, pinch a piece of paper and close the window. If you can pull the sheet of paper out now, have a professional look at the window. Because where a sheet of paper fits through, warm air also fits through.
In the case of doors, you can possibly also attach a seal to each door afterwards to prevent drafts from outside or from unheated rooms.
Clear radiators
There is no question: radiators are not exactly beautiful "furniture". But if you hide them behind a table or cupboard or cover them with a curtain, they can heat the room much less well. So if you can't see your radiator well, you have to rearrange it. And cleaning doesn't hurt either, because even dust can reduce the heating output.
Bleed the radiator
Does your heater gurgle when you turn it on? Doesn't it get really warm? Then it's time to bleed the radiator. That also saves energy. You can use a bleeder key to let the air out of the radiators. You should check the pressure in the boiler, advise consumer advocates. That also means: In an apartment building you need support from your landlord or the administration.
Set up a smart home
Do you want to go into an icy cold bath tomorrow? Probably not. So you leave the heating on all night? That's not ideal either. Set up a smart solution and control your heating automatically. In the simplest version, this can be done with interchangeable heating thermostats, which you program depending on the time. But you can also set up a complete Smart Home and, for example, automatically switch off the heating in the entire apartment when you are not there. If you use a Fritzbox as a router, there are also heating thermostats for these, which you can control via the router.
Read on now
5 tricks to save energy and money with Smart Home
Check temperature
In general, you should also think about how warm you really need it in the apartment and whether every room needs to be heated. For example, a living room does not have to have more than 22 degrees. The kitchen and bedroom manage with 17 to 19 degrees. Depending on the insulation of the apartment, you often don't even have to heat it here. This also applies to the hallway and storage room. The bathroom, on the other hand, is uncomfortably cold when it is below 22 degrees.
If you work with a smart home or thermostats that set different temperatures depending on the time, make sure that the differences are not too big. It takes more energy to reheat a completely cold room every day than to keep it warm at a lower level. In general, however, the following applies: every degree that you can do without saves around six percent on heating costs. You can save a surprising amount of money with a thick sweater or warm socks.
Have the heating system checked
Once a year, a professional should check your gas boiler. By readjusting the settings, savings of 10 to 15 percent can usually be achieved, experts say. The fitter can also set a night reduction so that heating and showering can continue at night if you need it – just not quite as hot. After all, the system has to keep the hot water available all the time.
Save gas when cooking
Do you also cook with gas? Then you have several methods to reduce gas consumption. For example, you should always have a lid on the pot so that the heat stays in the pot. At the same time, you should cook on the lowest possible flame and use as little water as possible when cooking vegetables and pasta. You should also heat larger amounts of water with a kettle.
Read on now
Electricity bill too high? These measures help quickly
About our links
We mark partner links with these symbols.
If you click on such a link or button or make a purchase via it, we will receive a small
Remuneration from the respective website operator. This has no effect on the price of a purchase.
But you help us to continue offering inside digital free of charge. Thanks very much!
