Fuel saving is an increasingly important topic. The price of energy, in particular fossil fuel, is historically high and seems set to increase. Fuel bills for the home take up an ever-increasing proportion of people's budgets.

Equally, while there is still some debate about the details, the evidence for man-made climate change effects (global warming) becomes stronger every year. And even if global warming is not a reality, it is absolutely certain that there is only a finite amount of oil in the world - the more we use, the sooner prices will soar as the easily-extracted reserves are used up.

The average European car produces around 3000 kg of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per year, and the fuel costs around £1000. The average northern European house produces about 6000 kg (for space heating, hot water, lighting, cooking, etc), and the fuel costs £500+. So whether you are interested in environment-friendliness or saving money, making your home more economical is just as important as making your car more economical. (I am always amazed that environmental campaigners continually criticise the impact of cars on global warming, while almost ignoring the equally significant effect of homes. (And don't get me started about air travel...) )

Fortunately there are plenty of measures you can take to reduce energy use at home, many of which will pay for themselves very quickly. Cavity wall insulation, draught-proofing, lagging your hot water cylinder, fitting energy-saving light bulbs, and double-glazing, are all well worth considering. If your central heating boiler needs replacing, a condensing variety is very much more efficient than a conventional boiler.

I am not, however, by any means an expert on these matters. Fundamentally this site is about fuel saving for cars, but I wanted to say a little about fuel saving at home because it is so often ignored, yet extremely important.

You can find a wealth of information about home energy efficiency on the Internet; here are a few links I found, chosen entirely at random:

Save Energy website

National Energy Foundation

US Department of Energy