Heating is expensive. Especially in winter. You can blame basic thermodynamics for this. The tendency for heat to radiate outwards and try its hardest to escape as temperature levels normalize in a region is a basic fact of life. As a direct result of this, heating a room can be an incredibly wasteful endeavour.
In order to ensure you’re not pouring money down the drain, there’s a couple of different things you can do. Even if you have enough money to throw around, taking a few minutes to ensure you’re being energy efficient is something that you might want to get into the habit of. Especially as energy efficiency regulations and evaluations become more common across the globe.
Bleeding Radiators
This is something that you can do very quickly and easily. But it can make the biggest difference in terms of improving just how efficient your heating system is.
No system is perfect by any means. Even inowadays, as time goes by, pockets of air can build up at the top of your radiator. These pockets of air prevent your radiator from being filled entirely with hot water. As a direct result, your radiators won’t heat up as quickly and might not get as warm as you’d like.
Debris can also build up throughout your entire heating system. This can be flushed out by bleeding and refilling your system a handful of times.
Radiator Reflectors
Radiator reflectors are a cheap and relatively simple innovation. Radiators are relatively efficient in the sense that most of them are room facing. But there’s still one key part of the radiator that often goes to waste – the back end. Radiator reflectors mount on top of your radiator and travel down the back. They stop heat from being radiated backwards into the wall and reflect it back towards the rest of the room. A simple and cheap solution that can help you save a few pounds that, otherwise, would go towards wasted energy.
Upgrading Radiators
If the steps above don’t net you enough of an increase in efficiency, it might be time to consider upgrading. There’s a massive variety of companies out there that produce high quality and modern radiators. Looking to upgrade, I went with Trade radiators which are a good choice if you’re also thinking about redecorating. There’s enough variety in there to have you set up for pretty much any aesthetic you could have planned out.
Modern Heating Controls
These are a must for anyone who’s worrying about efficiency too. Most modern heating control systems are wireless now, which can be a bit of a double edged sword. Losing your remote, for instance, can be a nightmare, especially if you’ve set your heating up on a timer.
Most modern heating control systems are relatively cheap. They’ll often allow you to program your heating in time with you waking up in the morning, arrive home from work or for any of the other times you’ll find yourself coming and going.
Ensure your systems have frost control settings. If you’re off on holiday during the winter, you’re going to want to enable this. Frost control will only kick in when the temperature in your system drops low enough for the pipes to freeze. Water expands as it freezes, which can make your pipes burst. By setting up your frost control system, you will be protecting not only your pipes and heating systems, but your whole house.
