How to Improve the Energy Efficiency of Your Home Heating System
If your household running costs are climbing, like everyone else’s in the UK, and you’re looking for a way to bring them down again, then you can do so by improving the energy efficiency of your home heating system. Being smart about the way you save energy in your home can lower your bills and your environmental impact, all the while creating a better, more comfortable living space.
The Benefits of Energy Efficiency
There are many benefits to improving the energy efficiency of your home. Here are a few of them:
- It’s Better for the Environment – Energy efficiency reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which can help with climate change and benefit public health and ecosystems.
- It Saves You Money – Embracing energy efficiency will lower your bills over time.
- It Gives You Health Benefits – Better efficient energy use improves indoor environments (better temperature control, ventilation, and reduced dampness), which lowers health risks.
So, What Will Help Your Home Run More Efficiently?
Both radiators and boilers are central to how efficiently your home heating system runs.
- You need to choose the right radiator, as some companies overstate heating outputs.
- Operating at lower temperatures will bring down your bills. But you need the right-sized radiator based on the heat loss of the space.
- An efficient boiler will ensure that you don’t waste any energy while trying to heat your house.
The trick is to look at these elements together, rather than separately. This can help homeowners make simple and practical improvements to reduce their bills.
Here are some simple steps you can take to make sure your home is running as it should be:
- Service your boiler
- Bleed radiators
- Use thermostatic radiator valves
- Keep your thermostat between 18–21°C
- Invest in weather compensation control
- Exploring renewable options, such as Air2water heat pumps
Looking for bigger ways to improve your sustainability and keep your household costs low? Read on.
Upgrade to Modern Radiators
Radiators have come a long way in the last few decades, with better designs. However, if you still have an older model, this can take a lot longer to heat up, and it likely won’t distribute warmth evenly throughout your home. This translates to you needing even more energy to reach the same level of comfort.
Compared to those ancient contraptions, modern radiators are deliberately designed to maximise heat output and will use less energy when sized correctly – it’s a win-win!
However, please note that this doesn’t necessarily mean it will heat your home up adequately. Many suppliers sell radiators with overstated heat outputs, which means your radiators may not be sized properly based on the heat loss of the space. Simply put: they can run 24/7, but they still won’t heat your home. At UK Radiators, all our radiators are independently tested for accurate heat outputs, so you can trust them to provide the heat you need for your home.
Don’t Just Pick Any Modern Radiator: You Need the Right Size
Like with everything, you’ll want to do your research. This is because choosing the right (or the wrong) radiator size can have a big impact on how well your home heats up. Your radiator needs to be sized correctly based on the heat loss of the space. This means you can operate your system at lower temperatures, without sacrificing comfort.
This is great news if you hate those icy cold nights when you just can’t seem to get warm. The right radiator will ensure you can.
Consider the Placement
Another thing to consider is where your radiators are placed in the house. Make sure they aren’t blocked by furniture or curtains; otherwise, the heat will get trapped. If there’s nothing in the way, this means heat can circulate freely, so you don’t end up wasting energy. This will lead to improvements in the performance of your heating system.
Install Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs)
Thermostatic Radiator Valves, or TRVs, are fantastic for energy efficiency because they give homeowners control over the temperature of individual rooms. They’re clever little devices – they sense the air temperature around them and adjust the flow of hot water that travels into the radiator. This helps prevent overheating and wasted energy.
The great thing about this level of control is that you don’t have to heat every single room in the house to the same degree. For example, you might want to keep the living room nice and toasty, but at the same time set spare rooms or hallways to a lower temperature. This room-by-room approach will, over time, reduce your overall energy use without having to sacrifice comfort where it matters most.
TRVs are a relatively simple upgrade that can make a big difference in both comfort and efficiency.
Balance Your Heating System
Not even the most modern radiator or efficient boiler will save your energy performance if you don’t have a balanced heating system. “Balancing” refers to adjusting the hot water flow to heat up radiators evenly. The idea of this is to prevent certain rooms in your house from overheating while others stay cold.
- Not sure how to balance a heating system? Here’s how:
- Start by turning the heating on
- Check which of your radiators are warming up the quickest
- Once you know, close their lockshield slightly. This will push more hot water to the coolest ones.
The aim is for all radiators to reach the same temperature at about the same time. Many homeowners make minor adjustments themselves with a radiator key and a little bit of patience, but we recommend contacting a professional heating engineer. They’ll carry out a full balance more quickly and accurately. They can measure and fine-tune water flow throughout the system, giving you more consistent warmth across your entire home and a heating system that runs more efficiently overall.
Don’t Overlook Your Boiler
Although it’s clear that radiators are one of the most important aspects of your heating system when it comes to energy efficiency, the boiler is the heart of the heating system. An old, inefficient boiler will waste buckets of energy, no matter how modern your radiators are, which will skyrocket both energy bills and carbon emissions.
Modern condensing and combi boilers are designed to make far better use of the fuel they consume. They achieve efficiencies of over 90% by capturing and reusing heat that would otherwise be lost through the flue. This means more of the energy you pay for goes directly into heating your home.
Upgrading to a modern condensing boiler from WarmZilla can reduce your energy bills by up to 30%, and ensure your radiators perform at their best at the same time.
Weather Compensation Controls
Forget about smart heating controls – you need weather compensation controls. Although things like programmable thermostats, smart thermostatic radiator valves, and other smart heating controls let homeowners fine-tune when and how their heating system operates, it doesn’t do much for energy efficiency.
Alternatively, weather compensation controls can greatly improve the efficiency of your central heating system. This is because they modulate the system operating temperature based on what the outside temperature is at any given time.
When designed properly, your central heating system has the capacity to heat your home during the coldest parts of winter, when heat loss is greatest. However, we use our heating systems all year round – not just in the coldest part of winter. This means that, a lot of the time, you can reduce the system’s flow temperature, which allows the system to operate more efficiently and use less energy, whilst still achieving the desired comfort level of the home.
Because of this, avoiding unnecessary heating and reducing wasted energy becomes so much easier. Over time, these small adjustments can add up to meaningful savings.
Regular Maintenance
Don’t overlook regular maintenance; it’s crucial for efficiency! Servicing your boiler once a year will make sure your system is running smoothly. It also puts your mind at rest, ensuring you spot issues before they lead to bigger problems like breakdowns or wasted fuel.
Maintaining your boiler doesn’t have to be a big task. Small tasks like bleeding trapped air and checking valves will ensure that heat is distributed evenly throughout the home. Keeping on top of these tasks will extend the life of the system and also maintain peak efficiency.
Maximising Comfort and Efficiency in Your Heating
If you want to make your home heating system more energy efficient, you need a combination of improvements to bring the most significant benefits. Properly-sized radiators, weather compensation controls, and a properly balanced system all help to distribute heat more effectively, and an efficient boiler ensures that any energy is used wisely.
If you’re a homeowner looking to maximise your energy efficiency, consider radiator upgrades through UK Radiators alongside a boiler replacement from WarmZilla. This offers the best of both worlds: lower running costs, a reduced environmental footprint, and a warmer, more comfortable home.
