When winter approaches each year, the temperatures drop and houses across the UK and Ireland begin to feel the chill. Preparing your central heating systems to keep warm during the colder months is essential, and with much talk about the cost of living, being as efficient as possible with your heating will help you save on energy bills.
Here at Stelrad, we have a range of energy efficient radiators that assist with heating your home economically. As well as their great design to suit any room of your home, their performance ensures you can keep energy costs down. To help you with heating your home for less, below are some top tips from our team on how to keep your central heating cost-effective during the winter months.
1. Service Your Boiler
Your boiler needs a good service regularly, ideally once a year. This will ensure that it’s working efficiently without any problems and is safe to use. If you have a magnetic filter attached, this will also need to be cleaned, as over time it will collect magnetic debris.
You may want to consider having your boiler serviced before the colder months, such as during the summer holidays. Heating engineers may become busy throughout September and October as people start to turn their heating on and potentially discover issues.
It can be best to get your boiler serviced in plenty of time so that if you experience a cold snap in your area earlier than expected, you’ll know your heating will work as it should. A regularly serviced boiler will run much more efficiently than one that has not been checked.
2. Adjust Your Boiler Settings
It’s good practice to familiarise yourself with the boiler settings and how to turn them down when you need to. The lower the settings, the less energy will be used, and the lower your heating bills will be. Most boilers will heat both the central heating system and the running hot water in your taps, so making sure they are high enough to do this effectively, but not higher than you need is best. Even turning them down by just 1 degree can make noticeable savings on your energy bill.
3. Insulate Your Loft
As heat will rise in your home, if you have a loft, insulating this will prevent unnecessary loss of heat. It will ensure that you can keep your home heated for longer without having the heating turned on constantly, containing the heat throughout your house. Insulating your loft to the recommended requirements, the minimum depth being 270mm, is most effective, especially in older homes where they may not have sufficient insulation. This will help to keep your bills down while keeping your home warm. Where possible, find out how else you can insulate your home in preparation for the winter months ahead.
4. Consider Cavity Wall Insulation
It’s worth checking if you have cavity wall insulation, as just like loft insulation, it assists in having a warmer home for longer. Many older homes will not have this, so getting a quote on having it installed is worth it. A lot of homes already have this today, but if yours doesn’t, it can reduce the amount you have to spend annually on heating bills. By insulating the walls, you are reducing the amount of heat lost through them. It’s a simple but effective option, particularly if you have a ‘cold’ house. Depending on the type of property you have, the installation costs will vary, but the savings you’ll make over time will make the investment worth it.
5. Fix Draughty Leaks in Your Home
The biggest culprit for escaped heat is draughts. You should inspect your home for possible draught leaks, as they can appear in many common areas. They could be under the door, cracks near the windows, wooden flooring, and so on. Where possible, fix the draught leaks and you can make substantial savings on your energy bills – you’ll be surprised how much heat a home will lose due to draughts. It’s inexpensive and easy to do yourself; visit any DIY store and head for the draught-proofing products and decorator’s caulk. Most are reasonably priced and simple to fit quickly.
6. Use your Central Heating Thermostat Efficiently
Your central heating will not need to run at high temperatures continuously for your home to benefit. While it may give you that toasty, warm feeling, your electricity bill will rise. It’s much more cost-effective to layer up or pop on a jumper and set the thermostat down a degree or two, rather than turning your thermostat up to maximum.
Try the lowest acceptable temperature of 18-19 degrees on the thermostat to start with and move it up by one degree at a time to find an acceptable temperature for you. Combined with these other suggestions you may be surprised at the temperature that feels comfy and even more surprised when you see your next heating bill! Remember you can always turn the thermostat up for ten minutes to give the home a heat boost – just remember to turn it back down after.
7. Install Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs)
Your entire house doesn’t need to be heated to the same degree at the same time. Look at installing thermostatic radiator valves to each radiator in your home. These radiator valves will help you regulate the flow of water to your radiators which will help you control the temperature required for each room.
The boiler is your home’s central heating control unit, setting the temperature of the water that heats the radiators. What a thermostatic valve does is give you individual control of each radiator. The dial allows you to choose the ambient temperature around the thermostatic head, which then maintains the room temperature. The radiator will turn on and off at a lower, more efficient setting, and the higher the setting, the hotter the radiator.
It’s a good idea to only have the radiators you need to use turning on, rather than in rooms you hardly use throughout the day. For example, keeping your living room, where you may spend more time, warmer than your empty spare room, which may simply not get used. Keep the temperature at a level that keeps the chill off rooms you don’t use but the ones you live in a little warmer to keep comfortable. You don’t need the whole home to be the same temperature all the time!
8. Install Reflector Panels
You can invest in reflector panels behind your radiators as a quick way to be more cost-effective. Although not hugely attractive, the reflector panels will assist in reflecting heat back into the room that will otherwise be absorbed by the walls behind the radiators. These make sure that as much as possible of the heat you pay for makes it into your room to keep you warm and comfy. These shouldn’t really be needed if the radiator is the correct size, however, the reflector will still have a positive effect if installed.
9. Bleed Your Radiator
Make sure that your radiators are full of water and not partially filled with air bubbles. The air is essentially replacing any hot water that would be needed to heat the radiator to be effective when in use. This is a natural side effect of the water in the central heating system heating and cooling down. You can out find out how to bleed a radiator in our guide, as this will remove any pockets of air, helping your radiators work more efficiently.
10. Switch Energy suppliers
Your energy provider should be giving you the best deal; however, this is not always the case and customers are entitled to shop around. Use comparison services to compare different suppliers and deals and see whether or not you can make any savings. Changing suppliers unnecessarily is not advisable, so it’s always best to research and compare first and see if you can make any savings by doing so.
11. Install a Smart Meter
To help you stay on top of your heating spend, having a smart meter can be an effective way to monitor your daily use. It also helps to send automatic meter readings to your energy supplier, helping provide a more accurate reading. Having this handy gadget installed is one method to be able to at a glance check your energy spend and remove any unpredictability about your bills. You’ll be able to see exactly how your energy is being used so you can make adjustments to your usage if necessary.
We hope you find these central heating tips useful when the cold months arrive. For more information and tips on your radiators, please browse our radiator advice page. Below are some common questions about heating your home you may find useful.
Further Q&As
Is it cost effective to leave the central heating on?
It all depends on the heating controls you have on your system. It is better to turn the heat setting down when you’re not in the home or at night when you’re in bed, this is called a set-back temperature. By turning the heating off, you are not incurring a bill for heating at all. The higher and longer you have the heating on for the more it will cost you. We recommend that you use TRVs to have the right level of heat in each room, which will save energy, and that when you go out you could turn the heat down to a bare minimum that keeps the chill off the house. If you have Wi-Fi controlled heating, you can switch it back on twenty minutes before you get home to ensure there is acceptable heat in the house. If not and you know what time you will be home, set the heating to come back on a quarter of an hour before you arrive home. It’s all about how you manage your settings – just have the heat on when you need it and at a level that is acceptable to you. Then, when not in use set the temperature to a ‘comfort’ setting to prevent using excessive energy when reaching the ‘in use’ temperature.
Is it cheaper to leave the central heating on low all the time?
In really cold weather it may be, but if constantly ‘on’ the setting could be 18 – 19oC. It will ensure you have no freezing pipes. But in general terms no. You should always turn the heating off if you know you will not be home and set the timer for the heating to come back on just before you return home.
Is it cheaper to use central heating or electric heaters?
It depends what fuel you use to operate your central heating – in the UK and Ireland most of us use mains gas to heat our homes. Others use oil, LPG, solid fuel and renewable systems like air source heat pumps and ground source heat pumps. Some of us use wood pellet boilers and burners.
In general terms its less expensive to use gas than electric heating. But modern electric radiators and heaters can be very efficient, you need to consult your local heating engineer for the most cost-effective option for your home.
Is it cheaper to turn off radiators in unused rooms?
Technically, yes it is. Anything you can turn down will help reduce your bills. But if you leave doors open into these unused rooms, the heating from the rest of the house will move towards the cold space so try to keep doors closed in unused cooler rooms. If you have TRVs on every radiator in every room, you should be able to control the heat levels well – so in rooms you live in, try the level at 3-5. For the rooms you don’t use leave the level at 1-2 only, which will allow the heat to be at an acceptable level whilst not reaching the temperatures you need in living rooms.
Should I unplug unused appliances?
It makes little difference to your electricity bill, but it’s easy to leave appliances on without realising if you don’t make the effort to switch them off. If you turn all your lights in the house off before you go to bed and look around, you will see the worryingly large number of small red lights that each appliance has to let you know they are plugged in and if they need charging – are charging! These small lights cost you more than you might imagine so it’s always worth switching off these so called ‘stand-by’ lights if you can! That will save you money on your bills.
Should I close all the doors in my house?
Front and back – definitely! Inside doors – this depends. If you are happy with the temperature in your home and have the doors to rooms you are not using, open, then the heat in the home will keep the chill off the unused rooms. If you are using TRVs to control the heat in each room, then yes, keep the doors closed and the TRV will more accurately keep the temperature in each room at the selected level.
What is the most economical temperature for central heating?
The most economical temperature is the one that provides comfort for you and those living in the home without going overboard. 18 degrees is usually considered the lowest temperature that will provide comfort in the colder months, but people feel the cold differently and for some 25 degrees will be the level they feel they need. Just remember you can save significantly by turning the thermostat down just 1 degree, and every degree after that saves even more.
Is a Combi boiler cheaper to run?
A combination boiler provides both heating and hot water and modern models do a really good job at that. They are in around 70% of all homes in the UK and they have become more popular due to them being space saving and cheaper to install. How much they cost to run depends again on what temperature you want from them and the settings you set for them.
What are the most efficient radiators for central heating?
In short, the right sized ones. To be efficient, they need to be correctly sized and this is a job your heating engineer should do for you before the installation. There is no point in installing huge, oversized radiators that your room size doesn’t need to keep it warm. Equally there’s no point in putting in a small radiator that can’t cope with the heat requirement of the space. We’ve all frozen in bathrooms where the towel warmer does just that warms the towels but not the bathroom!
There are two free radiator sizing and heat loss tools here at Stelrad that allow you to input each room’s dimensions, the number and sizes of windows and doors, and the type of materials of the walls and ceilings. Having put all that information in, it will tell you the size of the radiator you need to heat that room. It even gives you the most suitable option of our entire range and a choice most economical for your budget.
