5 Ways Homeowners Can Reduce Energy Costs

In April, energy companies increased the cost of gas and electricity, and with growing inflation, your central heating bill can be one of your most expensive monthly bills. It’s therefore important to ensure you’re doing everything you can to minimise these costs.

To help you achieve this, our expert team has compiled a list of top tips you can do:

Update your boiler

New boilers are significantly more efficient to run and maintain in comparison to older boilers. In fact, some new boilers now come with smart controls, which allow you to have full control of your heating system.

Your heating system could be 90% efficient with a modern condensing boiler, whereas conventional boilers usually have an efficiency level as low as 60%. In addition to this, new boilers with smart controls come with:

A timer – set a specific time to turn your boiler on or off, and this can be used to programme the temperature for different days of the week.
Smart thermostat heating system – control your boiler via an app so you can adjust your boiler settings and turn it on or off whilst you’re away from home.

Keep your radiators clean

You should frequently check that the water within your pipes and radiators is clean so that your heating system is more efficient. This also helps with the lifespan of your boiler, as a build-up of sludge in the system water could cause damage to the delicate components in the heating system. Regularly checking the water in the pipes will minimise the risk of this.

If your system has too much sludge, there will be cold spots at the bottom of your radiators, or they may take longer to get warmer. To check that your radiator water system is clean, you will need to powerflush your radiator.

Powerflushing your radiators can help to increase efficiency, as a radiator with copious amounts of sludge can increase bills by 25%.

Set your heaters on a timer

With the timer embedded into the smart control settings, you are in full control of your radiators.

To save money, it’s recommended that you turn your heating system off when you’re away from home, so you can save on energy. However, with modern smart control boilers, you can easily set your heating to turn back on at a specific time, instead of leaving them on all day whilst you’re away.

Set the thermostatic valve on your radiators to low

Many people believe that the higher the radiator thermostatic valves are set to, the faster the radiators heat up, but this depends on the size and settings of your boiler.

To be more efficient, you should keep the valves on a low setting and gradually turn them up until the room is at a comfortable temperature.

Check your heaters are balanced

Imbalanced heating systems can lead to you spending more money than necessary, as the radiators in your home won’t heat up at the same speed. Because of this, you may have to increase individual radiators’ thermostats’ set temperature, so that all the radiators in your home are warm.

For best practice, you must regularly check the temperature of the radiators in your home to ensure they are balanced. With balanced radiators, you’ll be able to keep your thermostat set at a lower temperate and still maintain a comfortable climate in your home.

How we can help

We have a selection of new boilers, including conventional, combi and system boilers. With our online quotation tool, we can provide you with a recommendation and quote to help you find the best boiler suitable for your home.