Making your home more energy efficient is often described as picking low hanging fruit or money up off the ground, but it looks like efficiency may not save you quite as much on your energy bill as you'd expect. According to the New Scientist:
"SURVEYS of hundreds of UK households reveal that people who have made their houses more energy efficient are more likely to indulge in small excesses - turning up the heating, for example, or keeping it on for longer.
Small excesses add up to large costs. The results of the studies - seven of them in total - suggest that such energy creep could wipe out as much as half of the anticipated savings from making homes more energy efficient (Building Research & Information, vol 38, issue 1)."
