There are lots of benefits to working from home. During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people found themselves creating makeshift home offices. Now, many companies are making remote and hybrid working the norm for their employees. If you’re one of these people, then it’s time to level up your home office.
There’s no shortage of information on how to design and decorate your home office; however, you should also think about making it as energy efficient as possible. After all, you’ll be spending a lot of time in it and an inefficient space is bad for the environment and your utility bills. You don’t want to be wasting all of that money you’re saving on not commuting.
Insulation
If your home office isn’t well insulated, then you’re just going to be spending money trying to heat it up or cool it down. So start with a solid foundation and ensure that your windows are draft-free and have no gaps.
Have your walls and ceiling lined with Celotex insulation board to keep precious heat from escaping your home.
Watch the thermostat
In general, a temperature of between 18-21ºC is optimum for adults. If you have any medical conditions or are one of those people who’s always cold, then it could be tempting to turn up the heating.
While every once and a while won’t make much difference; if you’re working from home every day, the heating costs are soon going to add up.
Rather than immediately reaching for the heating controls, try putting on an extra layer of clothing or something warm on your feet.
Use energy-efficient lighting
If you work late, or throughout the winter months, you’ll have lights on for long periods. Replace your bulbs with more energy-efficient ones to reduce the amount of electricity you’re using – and your bills. Energy-efficient bulbs cost more to buy, but they last a lot longer and are better value for money in the longer term.
Switch everything off
It seems that everything is designed to be left on standby these days. Some items don’t even have an off button. While standby is preferable to leaving everything switched on, it still uses a significant amount of electricity if things are switched on 24/7.
At the end of your workday, switch off all of your electronic devices. To make this easier for yourself, attach them all to smart plugs so that you can control them from your phone or smart speaker. You can even set a timer for all of the plugs to switch off at a particular time, just in case you forget.
Final thoughts
Working from home can bring with it a lot of benefits in terms of the types of jobs you can apply for, work-life balance and saving money. But it does mean that you’ll be using much more energy at home, which could have a huge impact on your energy bills. So it makes sense to make your home office as energy-efficient as possible.
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