Seamus Brennan B.Sc. Mech. Eng.
Central Heating Advice:
- Turn off the heating overnight and when you are out during the day.
or if you are going to be out of the house for more than a day.
- Houseowners can reduce their energy usage by up to 20% by installing easy to use heating controls in their home and using these controls in an efficient manner. As a minimum your home should be split into two independently controlled ‘zones’. They are ‘Space Heating Zone’ and ‘Domestic Hot Water Zone’. This allows you to heat the hot water without turning on the space heating. Additional space heating zones should be installed in larger homes to separate the living and bedroom space heating areas. These control upgrade measures are grant aided by SEI.
- Regular maintenance of your heating system will reduce fuel consumption. For example, servicing a kerosene boiler, which has not been serviced for 3 years, will bring about an immediate fuel reduction of some 5%.
- By replacing an old inefficient oil/gas boiler with a new high efficiency (90% +) condensing boiler, the householder can reduce energy usage by up to 20%. (SEI grant available towards boiler replacement in conjunction with heating control upgrade)
- Heat bedroom areas to less than 18ºC.
- 20ºC is an ideal room temperature. Turning down thermostats by 1ºC can reduce annual space heating energy consumption by 10% with an equivalent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
