With ever increasing heating bills and concerns over greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions there has never been a better time to take measures towards reducing home energy costs.
There are of course many measures that you can take that will reduce the amount of fuel necessary to heat your house and these include, an efficient modern boiler, lagging around pipes, and insulation in roof spaces and cavity walls.
Sensible programming of the heating timer/scheduler and a precise thermostat will also result in fuel savings, as will lowering all heat settings by a degree or two.
Add some extra radiators Surprisingly, another way to save heating costs is to actually increase the number of radiators that you have in your home.
With radiators more really can be less - at least in terms of heating costs and energy usage.
Very few people realise that the heat output of their boiler is typically far greater than that required to heat up their domestic central heating system and this results in the boiler attempting to re-heat hot water that is returned to it from the radiators.
This is inefficient and costly.
Ideally the total heat output of a home's radiators should be equal to, or slightly greater than, the power output of the boiler.
This makes sure that the water that is returned to the boiler, after it has completed a circulation cycle through the radiator system, has cooled down.
In other words it has efficiently released its heat energy into the house and not returned it to the energy source.
How many radiators is enough? You determine how many, and what sized, radiators your home should have by comparing the heat output of the boiler with the combined heat output of all the radiators (in kilowatts).
Once these figures are known it is then possible to increase the number of radiators in the home to produce a slight overcapacity on the radiator side.
i.
e.
Boiler output (Kw) In a house where all of the radiators are independently controlled by their own thermostat it is highly likely that there will be times when one or more of the radiators will "shut off" automatically.
When this is the case it is can be advisable to balance the "boiler versus radiator" heat output in such a way that the radiators have a capacity that is as much as 20% above that of the boiler.
(This allows for the fact that there will regularly be inactive radiators.
) This differential will of course be countered by the fact that, after a short initial heating phase, one or more of the radiators may switch itself off and the circulating hot water will consequently by-pass it.
Types and locations of radiators An important factor that will influence the efficiency of radiators is where they are placed within a room.
Positioning a radiator near an opening or a door encourages heat loss out of that room.
Equally, having a small radiator in a large room means that the radiator will always be struggling to work beyond its capacity and heat output.
This results in high energy usage and an uncomfortably cool room.
There are of course many measures that you can take that will reduce the amount of fuel necessary to heat your house and these include, an efficient modern boiler, lagging around pipes, and insulation in roof spaces and cavity walls.
Sensible programming of the heating timer/scheduler and a precise thermostat will also result in fuel savings, as will lowering all heat settings by a degree or two.
Add some extra radiators Surprisingly, another way to save heating costs is to actually increase the number of radiators that you have in your home.
With radiators more really can be less - at least in terms of heating costs and energy usage.
Very few people realise that the heat output of their boiler is typically far greater than that required to heat up their domestic central heating system and this results in the boiler attempting to re-heat hot water that is returned to it from the radiators.
This is inefficient and costly.
Ideally the total heat output of a home's radiators should be equal to, or slightly greater than, the power output of the boiler.
This makes sure that the water that is returned to the boiler, after it has completed a circulation cycle through the radiator system, has cooled down.
In other words it has efficiently released its heat energy into the house and not returned it to the energy source.
How many radiators is enough? You determine how many, and what sized, radiators your home should have by comparing the heat output of the boiler with the combined heat output of all the radiators (in kilowatts).
Once these figures are known it is then possible to increase the number of radiators in the home to produce a slight overcapacity on the radiator side.
i.
e.
Boiler output (Kw) In a house where all of the radiators are independently controlled by their own thermostat it is highly likely that there will be times when one or more of the radiators will "shut off" automatically.
When this is the case it is can be advisable to balance the "boiler versus radiator" heat output in such a way that the radiators have a capacity that is as much as 20% above that of the boiler.
(This allows for the fact that there will regularly be inactive radiators.
) This differential will of course be countered by the fact that, after a short initial heating phase, one or more of the radiators may switch itself off and the circulating hot water will consequently by-pass it.
Types and locations of radiators An important factor that will influence the efficiency of radiators is where they are placed within a room.
Positioning a radiator near an opening or a door encourages heat loss out of that room.
Equally, having a small radiator in a large room means that the radiator will always be struggling to work beyond its capacity and heat output.
This results in high energy usage and an uncomfortably cool room.
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