Low bills, warm rooms

Kala Subbuswamy and Nick Jukes from Leicester reveal how to reduce bills and still stay warm

We don't worry about the bills or the cold anymore. Our last place took ages to heat up, but never stayed warm. It was as if we were trying to heat up the whole street - and the cost reflected that. We must have spent a fortune on heating, and yet were rarely comfortable over the winter.

The house we moved to had its energy efficiency improved by our landlady who took advantage of a grant scheme to get a massive amount of work done at a discount. The contractors were arranged by the local council, which supervised the work.

It now has excellent loft insulation and a better heating system. The rooms heat up quickly and it's a pleasant place to be. There's still room for improvement, but the difference is huge.

The bills are so low that we wonder how we managed before, and we've almost forgotten what it was like to sit there in the cold, or to have the boiler on full blast in our attempt to keep the place at a bearable temperature.

If we move, we'd make sure that insulation and other green measures were high on the list of priorities for our new home.