10 Tips to Economically Heat Your Home

[Plumbase Spares]

As winter draws in, many of us will be switching the central heating. Especially in the mornings. However, heating your home can be a real drain on your finances. It seems worse when we’ve been used to reduced costs on gas and leaky through the warm summer months – there’s a sentence I thought I’d never utter.

Also, a quarter of people in Britain are living in fuel poverty, meaning they can’t afford to turn the heating on. For the elderly, vulnerable individuals, and lower income families, this has a huge effect on well-being and health. Many are forced to either heat or eat. Below are some ways you can maximise your home heating. Even small changes can have a big impact on your heating bills.

1. Put a layer on
Don’t worry, this your father’s response when you ask to turn the heating on or up. However, it would be valuable to expend Pop’s ethos to your boiler. You can buy a jacket, yes literally a jacket for your boiler for around...

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[Ric2013]

Cheap leaky? Do you mean lecky?
And do you really mean a boiler jacket or a cylinder one? Come on, the customers get confused enough without the trade adding confusion!

Other than that, good to see points 3 and 5 in such an article. I must say that the biggest impact I have seen to my house's heat needs has been the draught sealing (and insulation) of the ground floor, a measure that was not specifically considered last time I had an EPC report on the property.

Making a panel to cover the fireplace when not in use has also been helpful, and it has also proved very effective to install a door between the staircase and the living room such that the ground floor can be kept warmer than the bedrooms.

No space heating (unless you count cooking lunch) has been on at all today or yesterday and yet the living room remains at 17°C and no draughts.

 

[Murdoch]

No 9 is a bit suspect. If you can’t afford to run your boiler, I doubt you can afford to replace it.

Not sure I agree with No 6 either. We have our heating set to a lower temp during the day ... and it works well for us

Nb currently heating our house with free firewood in our wood burner

 

[Ric2013]

No 9 is a bit suspect. If you can’t afford to run your boiler, I doubt you can afford to replace it.

Not sure I agree with No 6 either. We have our heating set to a lower temp during the day . and it works well for us

Nb currently heating our house with free firewood in our wood burner

Agreed on 6. It's worth trying continuous vs timed heating and checking the gas consumption. In my old house, 24h heating used about 5% more gas than timed.

This house actually seemed to use less gas when heating was run 24h rather than timed last time I tried the experiement ( but boiler is noisy, so I switch it off at night anyway). I'm assuming the solid brick walls insulate better if they are kept dry, and also if the walls are kept warm, the room 'feels' warmer for a given air temperature, so you can drop the thermostat setting.

I'm more intrigude by the Clean Switch (10) and finding it hard to follow whether this is truly a renewable electricity tariff or not. I frankly didn't really understand the information available on the link from point 10. What I do know is that when price-capping was introduced for standard variable tariffs, some of the 'green' firms wanted exemptions (derogation) on the ground that their customers were willingly paying more for the genuine environmental credentials. Ofgen accordingly created the following criteria:

The suppliers’ tariffs had to demonstrate three outcomes to be granted a derogation:

• The tariff is an SVT that consumers have chosen to be on.
• By consumers being on the tariff, support is given to generation and production of renewable energy to an extent that is materially greater than that which is brought about as result of subsidies, obligations or other mandatory mechanisms.
• The cost to the licensee of supplying electricity/gas by virtue of the tariff is materially greater than the level of the default tariff cap for reasons that are directly attributable to the support that the tariff provides to renewable energy.

(Source: Ofgem confirms permanent energy price cap exemptions for three green suppliers - Energy Live News )


And ONLY Ecotricity, Good Energy, and Green Energy UK were deemed to comply. I hope you will understand my scepticism.