In 2017-18 the average home was 230.8 square metres, eight per cent bigger than 20 years ago, but a whopping 30 per cent larger than 30 years ago (the size peaked in 2008-09 at 247.7 metres squared).

And, you ask, what has this got to do with me?

Well it turns out that the bigger your house the more energy it takes to run (who'd have thought it!).

So, the single biggest effect you can have in reducing your costs and your environmental footprint is live in a smaller house (or build one).

After hot water the next biggest energy cost in your home is heating and cooling.

The exact calculations, like anything to do with homes are complicated, but regardless of where you live and how well insulated it is, the bigger the space the more energy it uses.

Of course, all the unused rooms that you have closed off just make the rest of the house that much harder to heat.

One of the benefits of lots of insulation is that it also helps keep your house cool.

Build a smaller house and you use fewer materials, which have a smaller carbon footprint in and of themselves, and you also use less energy getting them to site and less energy putting it up.

Build or buy a smaller house, with fewer square metres, and you have the luxury of spending more on those square metres - invest in some environmentally friendly tech and you'll make your house that much more efficient, reducing your carbon footprint but also creating a drier and healthier home.

Back to the big house - being humans, what do we do with all that space? We buy stuff.

Stuff that took energy (i.e. carbon) to make, stuff that took energy to ship and then stuff that will, inevitably, take up room in a landfill when it breaks and we throw it out, only to replace it with something new.

It's also stuff that will take more to power - on average, appliances take 15 percent of a house's energy to run: simply by having fewer of them, you'll reduce the amount of energy your house uses.

Therefore, in a nutshell - reduce your costs and impact by living in a smaller house.