Green gadgets that can help save money by remote control

Huma Qureshi looks at a growing range of gizmos designed to help cut energy consumption

Huma Qureshi
The Observer,
Sunday August 10 2008

With energy bills set to soar across the board in the wake of major price hikes from British Gas and EDF Energy, there has never been a better time to start changing your habits at home to help bring your bills down.
There is a lot more you can do than just switching to energy-saving light bulbs. According to the Energy Saving Trust, the average household could knock £270 off its energy bills - the equivalent of 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions - by adopting energy-efficient measures in the home. Even the smallest of actions, like turning a kettle off at the mains after you've boiled it, can not only help you be kinder to the environment, but also make a difference to your electricity bills. 'Taking a sustainable approach to living can save you money,' says Alex Lambie, founder of the eco-energy website Greenhelpline.com.
Say goodbye to standby
Arguably the biggest waste of electricity - and money - is to leave electrical appliances on standby, rather than switching them off at the mains. It can save the average family around £38 a year.
But if you keep forgetting to switch the socket off, or think it's too much of a hassle because you've got too many appliances linked to each other, there are easier ways to power down - for instance, by using devices like the Bye Bye Standby and the Standby Buster. You just plug all your appliances into one of these gadgets (for example, by using an extension lead to connect your television, DVD player and sound system, and plugging that into the Bye Bye Standby at the socket). You can then turn the whole lot off at the switch by clicking a simple remote control.
Jeff Ellis from Bye Bye Standby says: 'It's a good habit to get into, to turn everything off last thing at night, but in reality it's a rare person that will go around the house and turn off every single socket. A remote-controlled way of doing it makes it much easier.' You can also buy devices such as The Owl, which monitor overall electricity usage in the home and tell you how much energy each of your appliances is using.
The eco-friendlier kitchen
If you are buying new white goods, the manufacturer's information should tell you how energy-efficient they are. Fridges, freezers, washing machines and tumble dryers all carry an EU energy label giving their energy-efficiency ratings (on a scale from A to G, with A being most efficient) and how much electricity they use, measured either as kilowatt hours per year (for a fridge or freezer) or kilowatt hours per cycle (for items like washing machines). By choosing an appliance that carries an A rating (or A+++ for fridges and freezers), the more money you can save and the more you can help the environment.
Many electrical appliances also carry an 'Energy Saving Recommended' sticker, a blue label showing approval from the Energy Saving Trust. The trust says that if everyone in the UK upgraded their old kitchen appliances to ones carrying a recommended sticker, the whole country could save nearly £700m worth of electricity. If you swapped your old fridge-freezer for a new blue-label one, you could save £34 a year.
There are smaller changes that you can make in the kitchen too - replace a rusty, leaky kettle with an energy-saving one, such as the Kenwood Energy Saving Kettle, and you'll be using 35 per cent less electricity and only boiling as much water as you need.
Hold the heat
Making sure your home is properly insulated is key to cutting your heating costs. However, getting your walls and loft insulated can be expensive - at least £500 if not more. If you are on benefits, or are over 60 and in receipt of benefits, you can apply for a government grant to improve your home's insulation. But if you can't afford to carry out a major project like re-insulation, you could opt for the Radiator Booster, which sits on top of your radiator, captures the heat rather than letting it escape down the back of your radiator, and circulates it evenly around the room. The Radiator Booster claims to heat your room more quickly than the radiator on its own, meaning that, theoretically, your boiler doesn't need to be on for as long.
Old boilers are notoriously eco-unfriendly and not very cost-efficient. New condensing boilers can save at least a third on heating bills. On top of this, devices such as the Zenex Gas Saver can sit on top of your boiler, capture waste heat from the flue and use it to pre-heat the water. Because it helps heating to happen more rapidly, it reduces the time your boiler needs to be on for, cutting gas consumption by up to 50 per cent. But it does cost £595.
Most cost-cutting can, however, just be common sense. 'There is a place for new energy - and cost-saving gadgets, but at the end of the day, it's just about changing habits and getting used to doing things differently,' says Lambie. 'There's so much that you can do if you just think about it - don't leave your phone charger plugged in all the time; run your laptop battery down to zero before you charge it up again. If you make a point of switching all the sockets off at night, then before you know it, it's part of your daily routine.'
Where to buy
· Bye Bye Standby energy saving kit (£29.99) available from Waitrose, Comet and Currys.
· Radiator Booster (£14.99), Eco Kettle (£34.99) and Standby Buster Kit (£29.99) available from Nigel's Eco Store: www.nigelsecostore.com
· Zenex Gas Saver (£595) available from Zenex Technologies: 0800 328 7533
· Kenwood Energy Saving Kettle (£39.95) and Owl Wireless Energy Monitor (£34.95) available from John Lewis: www.johnlewis.com
For more on grants for home insulation, visit www.energysavingtrust.org.uk