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Seasonal heating advice

seasonal heating Harborne Edgbaston Moseley Kings Heath
Seasonal Heating Advice
To help you get some economic and ecological savings from your heating system here are a few areas to help with seasonal heating:

Make sure your boiler is not only serviced once a year but that you have – a programmer, room thermostat and thermostatic valves on your radiators.  

And, to retain as much of your heat as possible, insulate the loft and fit draught excluders to doors, especially exterior doors such as the main front door and letter box.

In addition to the above, there are now additional smart controls you can add to your heating system to enable you to be in control even when you are not at home, and the most sophisticated controls can zone your home to be heated at different temperatures and time settings in different areas or rooms. 

What is a Programmer?
Also known as a timer, this is a form of clock which you set to your lifestyle. Think of it as an alarm clock for the central heating. It tells the heating and boiler, when to switch on and off. The types of features vary from simple mono-fixed settings through to 7 x day programmers where you can choose when the heating comes on according to what day of the week it is. Also see our Smart Controls & Weather Compensation fact sheet.

Room Thermostats, What are they?
A room thermostat, often fixed to the wall in a central area of the home, is rather like a thermometer with an in-built on/off switch. You dial in the temperature you want the room to reach, e.g. 20ºc. With the heating on the room thermostat will tell your boiler that the temperature is now 20ºc, therefore, the boiler can turn off as the required temperature has been achieved. Upon the temperature dropping the thermostat will sense this and tell the boiler to turn on again.
central heating programmer Harborne Edgbaston Moseley Kings Heath

Thermostatic Radiator Valve Harborne Edgbaston Moseley Kings Heath
What do Thermostatic Radiator Valves do?
Also known as TRV’s, Thermostatic Radiator Valves control the heat output from individual radiators. As each room heats up to the desired temperature the individual radiator valve automatically closes, thus saving on boiler energy and heating bills. They re-open when the temperature has lowered. 

In addition, you can control the TRV manually- yourself. For example, you could close off every TRV valve except one in a room where you might be working for the day, thereby only heating one room whilst the others remain unused. There are a number of temperature range settings on the head which you can open and close as you please.

Also see our Smart Controls & Weather Compensation fact sheet.

Loft Insulation

Without this you could be losing 25% of your heat through the roof! Fitting loft insulation is straight forward and it is a task you could undertake yourself, preventing a quarter of your heat escaping through the roof!

Laid across the loft floor the insulation ought to be 200mm (8 inches) thick. Also known as ‘Rock wool’ or mineral fibre, these rolls provide an insulating quilt above your top floor ceiling.

In addition to loft insulation you can get rigid foam insulation, this can be fitted under floors and above ceilings and is useful if you live in a flat or, have a flat roof to insulate.
seasonal heating  Harborne Edgbaston Moseley Kings Heath
gas safe registered engineer Harborne Edgbaston Moseley Kings Heath
Are there any cheap ways I can save on my Heating?
  • Set your heating, via the programmer, to be off when you’re out at work, away for the day or have gone to bed.
  • Dress appropriately according to the season, think cosy jumpers, not t-shirts.
  • Invest in Weather Compensation or Smart controls
  • Turn the heating off, or down on individual radiators in rooms which you are not using, this is easy to do with TRV’s.
  • Touch your radiators. The heat output should be even and equal over the whole surface of the radiator. If you can feel distinct cold spots in either top or bottom corners have the problem rectified, your radiators are not working to their maximum potential.
We can help and assist with all of these areas, apart from an extra winter jumper!
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