How to Insulate Your Hot Water Tank for Free in Lancashire
An uninsulated or poorly insulated hot water cylinder loses enough heat to cost you £100 to £150 per year in wasted energy. A proper insulating jacket costs £15 to £25 from any hardware shop and takes ten minutes to fit, saving you that amount every year. If your cylinder already has a thin factory-fitted jacket (25mm or less), upgrading to a thicker 80mm jacket can still save an estimated £30 to £50 annually. For many Lancashire households, particularly those with older cylinders in airing cupboards, this is one of the quickest-payback energy improvements.
Does Your Lancashire Home Have a Hot Water Cylinder?
Not every home has one. If you have a combi boiler (which heats water on demand), you do not have a hot water cylinder and this article does not apply to you. Combi boilers are the most common setup in newer Lancashire homes and renovated properties.
However, a significant number of Lancashire homes still use a conventional or system boiler with a separate hot water cylinder, typically located in an airing cupboard on the landing or in a bedroom. This is especially common in pre-1990s homes that have not had a boiler replacement, including many terraces across Burnley, Blackburn and Nelson, semis in Chorley and Leyland, and older detached homes in the Ribble Valley and Fylde.
Homes with heat pumps also use hot water cylinders, and these are becoming more common in Lancashire as heat pump installations increase. If you have recently had a heat pump installed, your cylinder should already be well insulated as part of the installation specification, but it is worth checking.
Immersion heater systems, where an electric element inside the cylinder heats the water, are also found in some Lancashire homes, particularly flats and older properties without gas. These benefit enormously from improved insulation because electricity is roughly four times the cost of gas per unit.
How to Check Your Current Insulation Level
Open your airing cupboard and look at the cylinder. If it is a bare copper or steel cylinder with no covering, it is completely uninsulated and losing significant heat. You can confirm this by touching it – an uninsulated cylinder running at 60C will feel very warm to hot.
If the cylinder has a thin jacket or foam covering, check its thickness. Factory-fitted foam insulation on older cylinders is typically 25mm to 38mm. While this is better than nothing, it falls well short of the recommended 80mm. You can measure the thickness by pressing into it or checking the edge where it meets the cylinder.
Modern cylinders manufactured in the last 10 to 15 years usually come with factory-applied 50mm to 80mm polyurethane foam insulation that is integral to the cylinder. These are already well insulated and do not need an additional jacket. If your cylinder is relatively new and has a smooth, hard foam covering, it is probably fine as is.
Where to Get a Free Hot Water Cylinder Jacket
Several routes to a free cylinder jacket are available for Lancashire residents:
Your energy supplier may provide one free of charge. British Gas, EDF and OVO have all offered free energy-saving packs including cylinder jackets to qualifying customers. Contact your supplier and ask whether they have any current offers for free insulation materials.
Local authority schemes in Lancashire sometimes distribute free jackets as part of winter fuel poverty initiatives. Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley and Hyndburn borough councils have all run schemes in recent winters that included free cylinder jackets, draught excluders and LED light bulbs for residents in targeted areas. Check your council’s website or call their housing team.
Community energy groups and charities across Lancashire, including local age support charities and your local advisory service, occasionally provide free energy-saving materials. If you are on a low income or receive benefits, these organisations can often source a free jacket for you or point you to the right scheme.
If free options are not available, buying one yourself is still an excellent investment. A standard cylinder jacket costs £15 to £25 from B&Q, Screwfix, Wickes or any local hardware shop. At a saving of £100 or more per year, the payback is measured in weeks.
How to Fit a Hot Water Cylinder Jacket
Fitting a cylinder jacket is one of the simplest home improvement tasks. No tools are required, and anyone can do it.
First, ensure the cylinder is cool enough to handle. If the water has been heated recently, wait until it cools to a comfortable touch temperature. You do not need to turn off the heating or drain the cylinder.
Remove the jacket from its packaging and identify the segments. Most jackets come in six or eight pre-cut sections that wrap around the cylinder. Drape the top section over the cylinder like a hat, ensuring the dome of the cylinder is covered. Then wrap the side sections around the cylinder, overlapping each one slightly to avoid gaps.
Secure the jacket with the straps or ties provided. Most jackets come with nylon straps that buckle around the cylinder. Make sure the jacket fits snugly without compressing the insulation material (compression reduces its effectiveness). Tuck any loose edges in and ensure there are no gaps, particularly around pipes entering and leaving the cylinder.
If your cylinder has pipes, a thermostat, or an immersion heater element protruding, carefully cut the jacket material to fit around these obstacles. Use scissors to make small incisions where needed, but keep the cuts as small as possible to minimise heat loss through the openings.
Insulating Hot Water Pipes Too
While you are insulating the cylinder, spend another £10 to £20 on pipe insulation for the hot water pipes running from the cylinder. Pre-slit foam pipe lagging costs £1 to £3 per metre length and simply clips around the pipe. Insulate at least the first two metres of pipe from the cylinder, and ideally all accessible hot water pipes in the airing cupboard and any that run through unheated spaces like the loft.
Insulating hot water pipes may save an estimated £10 to £30 per year and reduces the time you wait for hot water to reach the tap (because less heat is lost along the pipe). For Lancashire homes where the cylinder is on the first floor and the kitchen is at the back of the ground floor – a common layout in terraces and semis – the pipes may run a considerable distance through cold spaces.
Pipe insulation in the loft is also important during winter to prevent frozen pipes, which is a real risk for exposed pipework in Lancashire’s colder months. A frozen pipe can burst and cause thousands of pounds of water damage, so pipe lagging in the loft serves double duty as both an energy-saving and frost-protection measure.
Setting Your Cylinder Thermostat Correctly
While you are attending to your cylinder, check the thermostat setting. The recommended temperature is 60C. This is hot enough to kill legionella bacteria (which can grow in water stored below 55C) but not so hot that it wastes excessive energy or creates a scalding risk.
Many Lancashire homes have cylinder thermostats set at 70C or higher, which wastes energy by heating the water more than necessary and losing more heat through the cylinder walls (even with good insulation, a hotter cylinder loses more heat because the temperature difference between the water and the surrounding air is greater).
Reducing the thermostat from 70C to 60C saves approximately £20 to £40 per year on gas bills, in addition to the savings from the insulation jacket. The thermostat is usually a dial or digital control strapped to the outside of the cylinder, accessible without tools.
Timer Settings for Maximum Savings
If your hot water is heated by a boiler on a timer, set it to heat water only when you need it rather than keeping it hot all day. For most Lancashire households, heating the water for one to two hours in the morning and one to two hours in the evening is sufficient. A well-insulated cylinder with an 80mm jacket loses only 1 to 2C per hour, so water heated at 6am will still be hot enough for a shower at 8am and warm enough for washing up at lunchtime.
Immersion heater users should consider using a timer switch (£10 to £20) if one is not already fitted. Running an immersion heater on a timer, rather than leaving it on constantly, can save an estimated £150 to £250 per year. If you are on an Economy 7 tariff, heating water overnight using the off-peak rate (currently around 10p per kWh) is significantly cheaper than heating during the day at the standard rate of 24.5p per kWh.
How much can I save by insulating my hot water cylinder?
Fitting an 80mm jacket on a completely uninsulated cylinder may save an estimated £100 to £150 per year. Upgrading from a thin 25mm jacket to an 80mm one may save an estimated £30 to £50 per year. Adding pipe insulation saves a further £10 to £30. Setting the thermostat to 60C instead of 70C saves another £20 to £40. Combined, these simple measures can save an estimated £160 to £270 annually.
Can I fit a cylinder jacket over the existing one?
Yes. If your cylinder has a thin existing jacket, you can add a second jacket over the top for additional insulation. This is cheaper and easier than removing the old jacket. Ensure the outer jacket fits securely and does not compress the inner one. Two 25mm jackets are not quite as effective as a single 80mm jacket (because of the air gap between them), but it is still a significant improvement.
Does my combi boiler have a hot water cylinder?
No. Combi boilers heat water directly from the mains on demand, so there is no stored hot water and no cylinder to insulate. If you have a combi boiler, the energy-saving equivalent is insulating the hot water pipes between the boiler and your taps, which costs £10 to £20 in pipe lagging and saves a small amount on waiting time and heat loss.
