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One of the major ongoing costs associated with running an office is energy. With electricity to keep the computers and the lights on, and heat to keep the space habitable during winter, your office probably won’t be able to function.
But managing the cost of these things, over the long term, is critical to the health of your business.
The first thing to consider here is the effect that energy costs will have on your bottom line. If you’re spending hundreds of pounds extra every winter, then you might easily justify investing a thousand pounds as a one-off cost-saving measure.
We should also think about the costs that energy consumption imposes on the environment. If you’re serious about pushing your business toward net zero, and caring for the environment, then you’ll need to take energy efficiency seriously, too.
There are several steps we might take to improve the efficiency of our office.
The first and most important step worth mentioning is insulation. By installing insulating material in walls, loft spaces and other crucial places, we can limit the flow of heat from the interior to the exterior of a building. The larger the office space, the greater the surface area that’s leaking heat, and the more important insulation becomes.
The way you generate heat also matters. Modern boilers and radiators tend to be vastly more efficient than older ones. Efficient vertical radiators will better transfer heat, while combi boilers will be better at generating it. Thus, the upgrade can often help generate a saving in the long run.
We might also consider things like solar heating, and heat pumps (of both the air and ground source variety). These technologies are particularly attractive for those running a larger office, which might benefit from a large investment.
Draught exclusion is a close cousin of insulation. But, rather than stopping the flow of heat outward, we’re looking here to prevent the cold from coming in. This means finding and sealing gaps around doors and windows, through which a draught might blow. It also means having a new policy of keeping doors and windows sealed.
We should also adjust our heating schedules to minimise waste. A smart heating schedule might allow you to preheat the office before everyone arrives, and dial back the heating just as everyone is getting ready to go home.
