The first person of any real significance to bring energy conservation into the public eye was President Jimmy Carter in 1977 during Americas oil crisis. He advised Americans to dial down the thermostats in their homes to conserve heating fuel.

He made this statement over thirty years ago, however it is still extremely relevant today, if not more so than it was then. The energy conservation concept is very simple. The less energy that the general population use, the more will be conserved on the whole.

The heating of the larger areas in a house usually makes up the most expensive part of the overall energy bills in an average household. A simple step to reduce your overall bill by around 2% is simply to turn down your thermostat by just 1 degree.

Your boiler will have to keep a set difference between the outside tempertature and the inside temperatue. This can sometimes be a big difference, particularly in the winter months, and if at any time this can be reduced, it should be, even by one or two degrees because this will mean that the heating system has to be on for less time, therefore saving more energy.

Of course the main thing that will spring to mind when turning a thermostat down is how cold the house will be. Well, President Carter had an answer for this as well, he said put a sweater on!

This may feel difficult to keep up at first, but after your body gets used to the new temperature of your house it will adjust and get used to it, or wearing thick socks and a sweater will simply become a natural part of what you do at home.

It can be tempting to turn your air conditioning unit up high during the summer months, well, the same principles as apply in winter months work the opposite way around to your air conditioning unit.

So in conclusion, in order to save on heating energy, and reduce your household expenditure at the same time, try to keep the temperature in your house as close to the temperature outside as you can, and adjusting your clothing can allow you to make more significant changes.