Condensing Boilers and Energy Efficiency

About 60% of your household's CO₂ emissions come from your boiler. That's why choosing a condensing boiler is so important. Fitting a new condensing boiler will not only reduce your home's CO₂ emissions by more than 800 kilograms a year, but it could also save you between £100 and £120 a year on your energy bills - Energy Savings Trust.

For the latest information about condensing boilers

download this guide from the National Energy Foundation

Central Heating Controls

You could improve the efficiency of your system even more and cut your home heating bills by fitting heating controls, saving around £110 a year and a further 800 kilograms of CO₂.

Proper use of central heating controls could save on heating bills ("How to Live a Low Carbon Life" by Chris Goodall, Earthscan, 2007).  The controls include:

• Wall thermostat
• programmer for central heating system
• thermostatic values on radiator
• boiler power regulator
• thermostat on the hot water tank.

The Energy Savings Trust has produced the Booklet "How to Control Your Heating"  pdf  which gives further advice.

Key points of advice are to ensure that your thermostat sensor is not in a room that is kept cooler using the radiator valves as this would mean the sensor would think the house was not yet up to its required heating, to put heating on a bit earlier in cold weather, but turn off a bit sooner, and not to use the thermostat to turn the boiler on and off.  If you need advice about your central heating programming, contact the manufacturer, or Energy Savings Trust Advice Centre on 0800 512 012.

New technology is emerging - "intelligent digital thermostats" that could potentially deliver up to 25% savings on your heating bill and pay for itself within 7 years, but these have not yet been proven.

For more information contact the Home Energy Conservation Officer: Jane Altounyan 023 8068 8274.