With summer well and truly over, many of us are already questioning how soon is too soon to put the heating on.
While it’s no fun being sat in a freezing cold room, the ever increasing cost of living is enough to make most of us think twice before touching the thermostat.
Although we recently saw a decrease in the energy price cap, taking it down to £1,923 from £2,074, most of us are still paying a lot more than we did a couple of years back.
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And if you’re using your heating to help dry your clothes then you could be chucking money away - not to mention putting your home at risk of growing mould, which can be seriously damaging to your health.
But fear not, as Martin Lewis has shared a much cheaper way of drying your clothes indoors, that is ‘far far cheaper' than putting the heating on or using a tumble dryer - which can cost up to a £1 an hour to run.
Speaking on his podcast, the Money Saving Expert recommended getting a dehumidifier, if you can afford one, as a cheaper option to chucking the heating on.
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He said: “Many dehumidifiers have different wattages, the one I checked out was 200 watts (w).
“Once we know it’s 200w and we know a kilowatt (kw) is 1,000w, which is how electricity tends to be priced, we know this is a fifth of a kilowatt.
"And you pay roughly 34p per kw per hour. A fifth is 7p so you’re going to pay roughly 7p per hour to run a dehumidifier at 200w assuming it uses full power the whole time. Which is generally far, far cheaper than putting the heating on.
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“If a dehumidifier does work for you it will definitely have lower electricity bills but of course you do have the initial capital outlay of buying a dehumidifier and see how that works for you.”
But if you do decide to put your heating on there are ways you can make it a bit cheaper for yourself.
Jess Steele, heating technology expert at BestHeating said: “20.8°C is the average thermostat setting in the UK, but 18°C should keep you comfortably warm throughout the colder months. This can save up to 10% on a fuel bill or an estimated £80.
"A clever way to assess if the heating is too warm is to turn the thermostat down by one °C and see how you feel.”
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The expert also advised to only heat the rooms that are being used and to not waste energy when you are not in the home.
Topics: Money, Martin Lewis
Claire Reid