Heat Your House For Less
You can never really rely on good old British weather – even in summer, you might find yourself needed to stick the heating on when it’s particularly overcast out. But in autumn and winter, keeping the heating on is usually a total necessity.
But finding the balance between staying warm through the winter months and keeping your bills down can certainly be worrying for some. When you hear the boiler fire up, it’s hard not to think about how much money is being burned. Fortunately, there are many ways you can keep the bills down while staying warm.
Cavity wall insulation
Firstly, how efficient is your house? Do you have cavity wall insulation? Insulation will keep heat in the property – with less heat escaping, you won’t need the heating on quite as much. If you don’t have cavity wall insulation, then we may be able to help you get this done, and for free.
What’s the catch? There isn’t one! There are many government-funded schemes out there that do this for free. Some properties previously couldn’t be treated, and were classified as Hard to Treat Solid Stone properties, leaving plenty of homeowners out in the cold. But now, in 2017, its possible thanks to a new technology called Isothane. Now even the hardest of properties can be treated, saving you hundreds of pounds a year on gas.
Thermostatic radiator valves
We hear many different opinions on how you should use your heating controls for optimum efficiency, but there really is only one way to keep it efficient, and keep your bills down.
It’s a simple one, really: only use the heating when you need to! If you have thermostatic radiator valves fitted, it makes it really easy to turn off the heat in all rooms that don’t need heating up. Turn off the bedroom radiators until an hour before bed, turn off the kitchen radiators once you’re done making dinner – it’s easy to get into the habit of managing your heating like this when it’s so easy.
Condensing boilers
Is your boiler efficient? If you have a gas back boiler, for example, then all that happens when you turn your heating on is that the majority of the gas burned goes straight up the chimney and out. It’s extremely inefficient!
If you have an old gas boiler that is not condensing, then for every £1.00 of gas that goes into it you probably only benefit from about £0.65, and lose £0.35 out of the flue. Maybe consider a new condensing boiler as, for every £1.00 spent, you’ll benefit from approximately £0.90. It can reduce your gas bills by around £320.00 per year, year on year.
Intelligent heating controls
Intelligent heating controls are becoming more and more popular and, once they have been set up, the system will work in many different ways. An intelligent heating system will know when you are en route to your home after work, for example, and turn on the heating in winter periods to make sure the house is heating to your desired temperature when you arrive at your door.
They can also compensate for any increases or decreases in external temperatures, and tell you how much it’s costing to run your boiler over the week, month, or even on a day-to-day basis. The intelligent heating controls can also tell you if a fault has occurred, and what the fault is. Best of all, you can control all of this remotely, too.
Need any advice?
We’ll always give you honest, straightforward advice, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have absolutely any questions at all about heating your home.
