What is this task trying to achieve?

Heating buildings accounts for 70% of a building’s energy consumption. That’s huge! That also means if we can implement ways of reducing it, we can have a big impact on our energy bills and the carbon-footprint of the building.

How should I do it?

Try to implement some of these simple ideas in either your place of work, or your home:

• Put some extra layers on - having your radiators on full-blast just so you can walk comfortably around the building in a t-shirt in winter isn’t very money or climate smart. Before turning the heating up, see if you couldn’t just put on a warm-jumper or some thick socks.

• De-block your radiator - putting a sofa or curtain in front of it stops air-flow and doesn’t allow the heat to really move around the room.

• Close your curtains or shutters at night - they help to keep the heat inside!

• Leaving the office - it doesn’t need to be that warm in the evenings and weekends. Turn the radiator down to something reasonable when you head home.

• Do you sleep with your window open? If so, turn the radiator off.

• Do you keep your windows slightly open during the day? If you’re doing this to air your rooms, it’s actually much more efficient to open all of the windows fully for a couple of minutes, 3 times during the day. Keeping the windows slightly open lets out a lot of heat and doesn’t really air the rooms properly. Opening everything for just a few minutes every day doesn’t cause much heat loss, but it does help to bring in lots of fresh air.

We’re counting! Please let us know if you’ve finished this task so that your help is added to our counters.

We’re listening! If you have any thoughts or questions about this task, please get in touch with us or post them on our Facebook group.