It costs good money to heat water so if your home is fitted with a hot water tank, make sure it’s well insulated so the minimum of energy is lost.

The modern hot water tank comes with insulation fitted as standard – either a metal ‘sandwich’ with the insulation between the two skins or a hard foam around a copper tank – but older homes could well have practically nothing in the way of covering. In the home the author grew up in, the tank was in the airing cupboard and was so poorly insulated all the towels and bedding stored in there always came out toasty warm…all that the wasted energy must have been expensive to produce!

The gold standard would have been to upgrade the tank but that’s very expensive – and an easier, cheaper and quicker way to improve matters is by fitting a jacket around the tank body. These are essentially Rockwool insulation held within plastic bags. The principle is simple enough: the jacket is wrapped around the tank, working around the feed and return pipework, immersion heater cable (if fitted) and so on. The tops are then drawn together and tied. A ‘waist belt’ or two should be pulled around the tank at intervals to keep the jacket in place but do not tighten these too much; compressing the jacket will compromise the insulation.

Once done, the heat loss will be reduced significantly. Mind you, the towels won’t be quite so toasty in the future!