The colder months are fast approaching which means that you’re going to have to find ways to stay warm(ish).
Unfortunately, when battling the cold, we use a significant amount of energy, detrimentally affecting the environment.
But what if there were some useful methods you could use to stay warm sustainably? Well, there happens to be a few.
Keep reading as we explain how you can brave the winter weather in a more eco-friendly way.
Find a Gas Boiler Alternative
Gas boilers are the most commonly used boilers in the UK, but did you know that the average one releases 2.2 tonnes of CO₂ each year?
Due to their affordability and relatively low running costs, gas boilers are widely used but they produce a high volume of greenhouse gas emissions.
Using an alternative, such as a biomass boiler, reduces the amount of harmful emissions being released into the atmosphere.
Here’s a breakdown of the approximate difference in CO₂ emissions:
- Gas Boilers- 0.215 kg/kWh
- Biomass Boilers- 0.05 kg/kWh
Using a high-performing sustainable boiler helps you reduce your carbon footprint, while still having access to heating during the winter.
Install Underfloor Heating
Underfloor heating offers an eco-friendly alternative to radiators and warms up the floor, providing heat for the entire room.
UFH is particularly useful in areas like bathrooms and kitchens where stone flooring is used, due to it feeling cold to walk on in bare feet.
Comparatively speaking, you can save around 25% of energy by choosing underfloor heating over a traditional radiator.
UFH produces much less CO₂ emissions than radiators because it requires less energy to function, whereas radiators use much more. This is a temperature operating comparison:
- Water-based underfloor heating operates at 27–31°C
- Radiators operate at 60–75°C
As a result of underfloor heating operating at a lower temperature than a more conventional option, it is both more energy efficient and eco-friendly.
Wear Heated Clothing
It’s important to remember heating up the whole house isn’t the direct goal for staying warm. What we are really trying to achieve is heating ourselves up.
Heated blankets and clothing put far less strain on the environment in terms of CO₂ production.
A typical gas boiler can use up to 80x more kWh per hour than an electric blanket. Here is a comparison of CO₂ emissions:
- Gas heating – approximately 1.5 kg of CO₂ produced per hour
- Heated blanket – approximately 0.02 kg of CO₂ produced per hour
By no means should you feel the need to avoid switching the heating on altogether. Alongside helping keep you warm, it can help prevent mould growth in your home.
However, wrapping up with warm clothes and blankets allows you to live in a more environmentally friendly way due to the drastic reduction of the need to constantly have the heating on full blast.
Gilets and blankets can be found for as little as £30. You can use them for hours while only paying pennies to charge them.
Batch Cooking
This is a convenient hack all year round, but with the amount of lighting and heating used throughout the summer, batch cooking can help with reducing the need for both.
In the winter, hot meals offer comfort and another form of warmth. Whether it’s stews or lasagne, preparing a supply for a few days provides a multitude of benefits.
The obvious one is that it saves a great deal of time on cooking. It is cost-efficient because it helps you to reduce food waste.
However, it also helps you operate in an eco-friendly way. A typical electric oven will consume approximately 1.56 kWh of electricity when used for a 30 minute cooking session.
By batch cooking, the daily average can be cut down significantly, therefore helping the environment.
By cooking in bulk, you will limit the time spent cooking in the kitchen, which reduces the need to have the lights on.
Conclusion
Winter can be a difficult time. Shorter days, darker nights, and unfavourable weather conditions pose challenges.
Staying warm at home is key. However, there are a number of ways you can reduce CO₂ emissions in order to do so in an eco-friendly way.
We have listed just some of the many effective ways you can help the environment this winter. Implement them as best you can to reduce your carbon footprint in the colder months.
