Whilst it is tempting to turn your heating right up at this time of year, this will result in a higher energy bill.
If your home has a wet heating system, then it is likely that it will have heating controls installed, which would include:
This is used to determine when you would like heat, and it may also control your hot water times if you have a hot water cylinder. Typically, you can set a couple of ‘on’ and ‘off’ periods throughout the day to fit into your daily routine, and also have the ability to boost your heating for one hour.
A room thermostat prevents your heating system from using more fuel than it needs to. It will turn the heating on until the room reaches the temperature you have set and then off until the temperature drops below that temperature.
TRVs will allow you to control the temperature of your individual radiators, allowing you to turn down the heat in rooms you are not using. This will save you using excessive amounts of heating where it is not needed, therefore saving you money on your energy bills.
Choice expects to replace over 150 oil boilers this year, with new efficient natural gas boilers. This improvement is expected to deliver a large number of benefits for our tenants, including reduced heating and hot water consumption and collective energy savings of over £20,000 per year. Our tenants’ impact on the environment is also expected to have reduced by over 200Tonnes of CO2 per year as a result of these upgrades.
Alternatively, you may find that you have Economy 7 storage heaters as your heating source, which if used incorrectly, can be expensive. Storage heaters work by drawing in electricity over the course of a few hours at night, storing this as heat, and releasing this heat during the following day.
To use your storage heaters effectively, you will need to operate your ‘Input’ and ‘Output’ dial regularly in order to maximise the heat that is charged overnight, for it to last the full day.
In some cases, you may find you have a smart storage heater, which will be more energy efficient than older storage heaters. On these storage heaters, you can set temperatures and heating times.
For more information on using your heating controls please visit our Energy page at www.choice-housing-org/energy or contact us on 0300 111 2211.
Download the heating controls guide here : https://www.choice-housing.org/media/2733/choice-heating.pdf
