Most energy-saving advice assumes you own your home and can insulate the loft or replace the boiler. Renters are stuck with someone else's building and someone else's appliances, which feels like there is little to be done. In fact tenants have more levers than they expect, split across free habits, cheap removable measures, the tariff you pay, and the things a landlord can be asked or required to sort out. This guide works through each, with the running costs that show where the money actually is.
The short answer. As a tenant your biggest savings come from how you use the home and from the tariff you pay, neither of which needs the landlord. Switching to a fair tariff and submitting real meter readings often saves the most, followed by no-cost habits like a lower thermostat and washing at 30 degrees. Add cheap removable kit you take with you, then push the landlord on insulation and the boiler.
Start with what costs nothing
The biggest savings need no permission and no spending, because they are about how you use the home rather than changing it. Set the thermostat a degree lower and time the heating to when you are actually in, turn the radiator valves down in rooms you do not use, wash clothes at thirty degrees and dry them on an airer rather than a dryer, boil only the water you need, and switch off the hungry standby devices.
The numbers are not trivial. Dropping the thermostat one degree saves roughly 8 to 10 per cent of heating use. Washing at 30 rather than 60 cuts the energy of a cycle by around half. Skipping the tumble dryer, one of the thirstiest appliances in any home at around 2 to 4 kWh a load, saves 50p to over £1 every time you dry on an airer instead. None of this touches the building, and together it makes a real dent whatever the state of the place.
Cheap, removable measures you take with you
You can improve a rented home temporarily with things that come away cleanly when you leave. Removable draught excluders for doors, the cheap self-adhesive foam strips for window and door gaps, a chimney balloon in an unused fireplace, and heavy lined curtains all cut heat loss and leave no trace.
Shrink-fit window insulation film is an inexpensive winter fix for single-glazed windows and peels off in spring, a cheap stand-in for the secondary glazing a tenant cannot fit. A cylinder jacket, if there is an exposed hot-water tank, is cheap and you can take it with you. Most of these appear on the quick wins under a tenner list, and the appeal for renters is that they are all reversible. You fit them on arrival and pack them when you move on.
The combined effect is bigger than any single item. A draughty older rental might lose a tenant £100 or more a year through gaps, cold windows and an uninsulated cylinder. Spend £20 to £30 on strips, film, a chimney balloon and a jacket and much of that comes back the first winter, then keeps returning at every property you take them to. None of it needs a landlord's sign-off, because nothing is fixed to the building. That is the key distinction for a renter: removable measures are yours to make, fixed ones you have to negotiate.
Take your lighting with you
If the place still has old halogen or incandescent bulbs, swap them for LEDs, which pay for themselves quickly through lower bills. Keep the original bulbs in a drawer and put them back when you leave, taking your LEDs to the next place.
The maths is firmly in your favour even over a short tenancy. Replacing one 60W incandescent run four hours a day with an 8W LED saves around 76 kWh a year, near £20 at 26.11p per kWh, from a bulb costing a couple of pounds. Do the most-used rooms and you recoup the cost within a few months, well inside any tenancy, and then you carry the bulbs to the next rental. It is one of the few efficiency improvements you can literally pack and carry.
Choose your own tariff: usually the biggest win
If you pay the energy bills directly and the account is in your name, you are normally free to switch supplier and tariff just as an owner would. This needs no landlord involvement and changes nothing physical, yet it is often the single biggest saving available to a renter because it sidesteps the building entirely.
Make sure you are not languishing on an expensive default or prepayment rate, submit regular meter readings so you are billed for what you use rather than an estimate, and compare on total annual cost as the switching guide sets out. Understanding how the price cap works and your standing charges helps you judge whether a fixed deal beats the capped rate.
The standing charge is worth a look in particular, because at 57.19p a day for electricity and 29.04p a day for gas it adds up to over £300 a year before you use a single unit. You pay it whether the flat is busy or empty, so for a small or lightly used rental it can be a big share of the bill. If you have a smart or prepayment meter you did not choose, you can usually still switch tariff, and understanding your energy bill helps you spot where the money goes. If your tenancy agreement names a specific supplier you must use, check the small print, but in most cases the choice is yours.
Find the waste with a monitor and a meter reading
Rented homes often come with tired, inefficient appliances you did not choose. You cannot replace the landlord's fridge or boiler, but you can find out which appliances are costing you and change how you use them. A plug-in monitor, covered in using a plug-in energy monitor, shows what each device draws, and the running cost calculator turns that into a yearly figure.
Here is what the worst offenders in a typical rental might cost you per year if left running.
| Appliance | Rough use | Cost a year |
|---|---|---|
| Old fridge-freezer (inefficient) | ~500 kWh | ~£131 |
| Electric immersion for all hot water | ~2,000 kWh | ~£522 |
| Tumble dryer, 3 loads a week | ~470 kWh | ~£123 |
| Set-top box left on standby | ~130 kWh | ~£34 |
At 26.11p/kWh electricity, Ofgem cap July to September 2026. Worked examples; check your own tariff and meter.
If a hungry fridge-freezer or the immersion heater is the problem, that is concrete evidence to put to the landlord when you ask for a replacement.
What to ask the landlord for
Some improvements need the landlord, and many are in their interest too, since an efficient property is more lettable and protects the building from damp. It is reasonable to ask for loft insulation to be topped up, draughty external doors and windows to be sorted, an ageing inefficient boiler to be replaced, and a hot-water cylinder to be properly insulated.
Framing it around comfort, lower running costs and avoiding the damp and condensation that insulation and ventilation help prevent tends to land better than demands. Bring the numbers from your monitor, since a landlord weighing the cost of a new appliance responds to evidence. Get any agreement in writing before spending your own money on anything fixed, and never assume you can deduct it from rent without that agreement. There are sometimes grant schemes such as ECO that help landlords fund insulation, which is worth mentioning as a way to lower their cost of saying yes.
Know the minimum standards
Rented homes are generally subject to minimum energy-efficiency standards, and a property below a certain energy rating may not legally be let in many cases. If you are in a cold, clearly inefficient home, check the property's energy performance certificate, which a landlord must usually provide, and understand the standards that apply where you live.
A property that falls short can give you grounds to press for improvements, and the EPC itself lists recommended measures, which is useful ammunition when you ask. The exact rules vary by jurisdiction and change over time, so check the current local position rather than relying on a fixed figure. The principle holds either way: tenants are not without protection here, and a poor EPC is a lever, not just a label. For everything you can do without involving anyone, the winter energy checklist is a good seasonal run-through.