Plumbing

The winter is well and truly here and with the cold weather settled in, it can be tempting to draw the curtains and turn up the thermostat whilst reminiscing the sunnier and warmer times. But keeping warm inside a house away from the elements may sound easy enough but you may be surprised as most people have no idea how to keep warm properly.

Recent studies show that the majority of Britons believe they understand their heating controls and how they work, but half of people are misusing the energy and turning up their thermostat. The majority of people also think that by turning up the heating, they’re making the room hotter quicker and that the external temperature makes a difference and hot water needs to be on constantly, all of this isn’t true!

Take a look at the below points, we help sort your heating fact from fiction…

Turn the heating up when it’s cold outside
Reports show that just over half of people, haven’t turned up the thermostat when it’s cold outside, but homes don’t actually need this as thermostats are there to maintain the internal temperature, whatever the weather.

You should turn the thermostat up to heat the room quicker
Most people turn their room thermostat up when they want the room to heat up quicker, this doesn’t actually work as it just heats your home up to a warmer temperature.

You should leave the heating on low constantly
It’s common that some people think it’s more energy efficient to leave the heating turned on at a lower temperature constantly, instead of turning it off and on. However, this is wrong as it only means these homes are heated when no-one’s there to benefit from it and then the home is too cold.

Keep your hot water on all day so you don’t run out
Should your hot water tank be properly insulated, water which has been heated for half an hour in the morning will stay warm until midday. It’s a better idea to set your water to come on for half an hour before you get up to shower.

Keep electric storage heaters on all time
Few people with electric storage heaters understand how they work and households with electric heating could be paying much higher prices by not taking advantage of cheaper night rate electricity.

Heating facts

Closing your curtains does save heat
Drawing your curtains can actually reduce heat loss from 15% to 17% whilst drawing the blinds reduces it by 13% to 14%.

Old boilers drain energy
Boilers of 15 years old or more can waste around 30 – 40 pence of every £1 spent on heating your home and water. By updating your heating system to an A-rated condensing boiler or oil fired model this could make your system up to 90% more efficient.

Bleeding your radiators does make a difference
It sounds like a big job, but bleeding your radiators is essential, if your home’s radiators aren’t as powerful as you’d like, then the first thing to do is to bleed them. Radiators which contain trapped air are hot at the bottom but then cold further up, so they don’t give off as much heat as needed. Bleeding them is easy, put a radiator key or a small screwdriver into the bleed valve on the radiator and open the valve to let out the air.

The arranging of your furniture
Putting a sofa in front of your radiator is a bit daft, especially when it comes to heat. You don’t want a radiator pumping heat into the back of a sofa, so it’s best to make sure situations like this are avoided.

If you need any further advice regarding heating in your home, feel free to contact our professional heating engineers.