How to Lower Your Heating Bills

Home-heating bills in the UK represent the fifth biggest cost for households following rent/mortgage, food, transport, and council tax. Each month, the average household spends £100 on heating bills. 

 

 Given this relatively large expense, it makes sense for us to find ways to minimise our heating bills. Today, we have collected a number of tips that will help you to save money on your bills.

Tip 1: Look for a Better Deal

There are two options here:

1. First, you can check with your existing supplier to see if they have a better tariff for you. If you are happy with your supplier and are reluctant to move suppliers, which can potentially open you up to some common problems, such as poor administration, then this is the best option.

2. Secondly, you can use a price comparison site and find the best deal for your area. Some families are saving as much as £300 a year by changing suppliers. It’s quite impressive, especially if you are with one of the big six companies, who tend to charge more for their energy than the smaller companies do.

Tip 2: Bleed the Radiator

You should bleed your radiator once or twice a year to get rid of trapped air in the system. This air will make the system less efficient.

As it is, many people never check their radiators at all. This means that it’s highly likely that their system is inefficient, and as such, that they are paying a lot more for their heating bills than is necessary.

Be sure to bleed your radiators at least once a year, including compact radiators. Some people seem to assume that smaller radiators require bleeding less often. This is not true – all your radiators should be bled at least once a year.

Tip 3: Have an Annual Boiler Service

It’s much better to take preventative action when it comes to your radiators, rather than waiting for something to go wrong.

You should have your boiler serviced each year to ensure that it is safe and running efficiently. This can save you a lot of money in the end and help to address problems and issues before they happen.

Following this advice will help you to save money on your heating bills.

Why You Might Consider a Professional Cleaner to Clean Your Radiators

You might think that keeping your radiators clean is relatively easy. All you have to do is a quick dust and a quick sponge down every now and again, right? 

Wrong, it’s actually more complicated than this. In order to look after your radiators correctly, it’s important that you follow the correct procedures. This means keeping them clean from dust (all over, including the convector fins) and making sure that when you clean them, you ensure that you dry them properly too.

However, sometimes it’s better to use a professional cleaning service to clean your radiators. Below, we’re going to look at some of the reasons why you might consider this option:

1. If you haven't cleaned the radiators in a while.

Many people completely neglect their radiators when it comes to their cleaning routine. This means that the dust and debris can build up over time and make it difficult to remove without damaging the radiator.

If your radiator hasn’t been cleaned in a while, it might be worth calling in the professionals. They’ll know which lotions and potions to use that will prevent the radiator from becoming damaged.

Harsh chemicals and abrasive materials will damage your radiator. If you have nice radiators, such as vertical designer radiators, then you should call in a professional to deal with tough stains. This will help keep your radiators safe, and, if something does go wrong, they will be liable for the damage, rather than you.

2. If you have rust spots and other signs of corrosion.

If your radiators have rust spots and other signs of corrosion, then you should call the professionals in to help you to remove this. Rust and corrosion are problematic for two reasons. First, it can lead to leaks, which can damage your property. Secondly, it can make the radiators less efficient, meaning that they cost you more in energy bills than you should be paying.

Getting rid of rust and corrosion is quite difficult. Calling in the professionals will ensure that the job is done properly, and that you don’t damage your radiators, especially if you do have vertical designer radiators!

As you can appreciate, it sometimes makes sense to call in the professional cleaners. This isn't necessarily the case, but it’s definitely something worth considering – especially if you have expensive designer radiators, which are not easy to replace.

How to Keep Your Hallway Nice and Warm – Without Spending Too Much Money

Hallways are relatively annoying to keep warm. This is because they’re big. They might feel small and narrow, but the average hallway in the UK is 55m². The reason they're so big, yet feel small, is because they usually have a high ceiling, covering both the upstairs and downstairs of the house, and they often run the full length of the house, or at least from the front room to the back room.

Given their size, they’re difficult to keep warm. In general, the bigger the space, the more energy you need to use to heat it. Clearly, this can become very expensive if all you're doing is relying on the radiators to keep things warm. 

Instead, it’s better to make as many adjustments to the hallway as you can, to help increase the amount of heat that it naturally retains. Here are a few things that you can do that will really help the space:

  

1. Carpets are much better than wooden floors or tiles at keeping the heat in the room (unless you have underfloor carpets). You can carpet the hallway for relatively little, as the footprint of the space is relatively small – it’s the height that tends to make it big, not the width.

If you can’t afford a new carpet, don’t worry, you can buy rugs instead. IKEA sell metre length rugs for as little as £2.99, so we’re certain that you'll be able to find cheap rugs that will help as insulation.

2. Consider changing the radiator to a more efficient and higher heat output model. You can buy radiators online for as little as £50 and they will make a big difference to the space, and help to keep bills somewhat low.

3. Use draft excluders to eliminate any cold air that can get in around the windows and the doors. You might even consider hanging a curtain in front of the door as it adds an extra level of insulation.

4. Make sure that you have sufficient insulation in the loft and if you have cavity walls, in the walls. You would be surprised by how much of the heat in the hallway can escape through the roof when the roof is poorly ventilated.

We hope that you have found this article useful. All of these tips will help to keep your house warm while minimising the amount of money you spend on your energy bills.

Does Covering the Radiator Reduce the Heat?

There are arguments for and not for boxing in a radiator. Whilst we can all agree that draping a towel over the bathroom radiator is a bad idea, boxing it in is another matter.

It’s also clearly a bad idea to have a wall mounted radiator beneath a window with curtains overlapping. This just results in heat loss through the glass.

One improvement we can all make is to ensure there is some reflective material on the wall immediately behind all radiators. This is particularly true if it’s an outside wall.

There are a number of proprietary products for this and the best resemble aluminum bubble wrap. Apart from preventing much of the radiator heat from simply heating the wall, it also helps radiate warmth back into the room.

The object of any kind of boxing is to delay the immediate rise of heat towards the ceiling and to try and radiate it into the room as much as possible.

Although we call it a radiator it is in fact more like a convector. This is because of the basic fact that all warm air rises.

To calculate how big a radiator is needed in a room is a fairly simple operation. Most sellers of central heating equipment will have a BTU Calculator on their website.

A BTU is otherwise known as a British thermal unit and this is calculated by feeding the dimensions of the room into a set formula. Other details are also required like the size and type of windows in the room.

The type of outside brick or stone is also taken into account along with details about the floor and ceiling.

It’s important to get the correct radiator output so that it’s not blasting away all day struggling to heat the room. And equally, a radiator with too much heat output is an unnecessary extra expense.

There is a strong argument that the latest new radiators are best left uncovered as their skin is thin enough to radiate more than older conventional ones.

But there is one other argument to cover radiators and that’s when there are young children around the house.

For a BTU calculator http://www.designerradiatorsdirect.co.uk/