Lana Hawkins You may have just moved into a new property or you may be renovating the property you’re currently in. Aside from the lovely creation of interior design and decoration there’s another element worth paying close attention to, your heating.
How you heat your home can have a big impact on the livability and comfort of the spaces you call home.
Assess the current situation
It’s important to understand exactly what is heating your property and how it works – the pros and cons. Once you have this understanding you’ll be in a good position to make the right choices about your heating.
What heats your house?
It may be a boiler powering a wet radiator system, or a back boiler on a solid fuel stove, air-conditioning or infrared heating. Every heating system has its own quirks and foibles, particularly if it’s older. It’s important to understand your heating system so that you know how to get the best out of it and whether it’s worth upgrading or sticking.
What’s it powered by?
There’s a few choices, your heating system could be fired by oil, mains gas, propane, electricity or solid fuel. Depending on what powers your heating system there will be an impact on whether it’s worth thinking about changing your heating system. Quite often the cost of replacing an inefficient heating system powered by an expensive fuel means that the capital outlay is repaid very quickly by the reduced running costs of the new system.
How old is it?
Boiler efficiency degrades reasonably quickly. A highly efficient boiler which is 10 years old will no longer be highly efficient and this has a large impact on your day-to-day running costs. If you have an old boiler it is worth considering the cost savings you will achieve by replacing it or replacing the whole heating system with a more efficient heating system
When was it last serviced?
Regularly servicing not just your boiler but also the radiators is important to keep a wet radiator system working efficiently. Likewise if you’re reliant on a solid fuel stove, keeping it swept and clean will also help with the overall efficiency. Air conditioning should also be regularly serviced to keep everything working as it should.
Does it actually do the job?
Pretty important one… does the heating system you have actually do what you want it to? Does it provide you with a controllable, comfortable and adjustable heat, and does it do this efficiently? If not, it may be that the system you have is not up to the job. In this case it’s possible that servicing the system resolves the issues, if not you may need to upgrade to a better, more efficient heating system.
Is it Flexible
The best and most efficient heating systems are flexible in that you can control the heat requirements of each individual room or zone. If you have a central thermostat controlling the heating get rid of it and install thermostatic control in each space. This ensures that you are not heating where you don’t need to and will have a large impact on the overall efficiency of your heating system.
Author Bio: Simon Sharp is the owner of Funkyheat, a UK based manufacturer of high-end infrared heating. He has a wide experience of heating and renewable energy.
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