How To Keep Warm For Less This Winter

Everybody’s looking for ways to save money this winter, due to rising costs, not only from energy bills but also most other household and living essentials too.

We all want to stay warm and the temptation is to turn the heating up as the temperatures drop and while we can’t do much about the cost of food and drink, there are some things we can do to make sure we’re not wasting our hard-earned money on unnecessary heating bills.

With advice ranging from putting tin foil behind your radiators to donning an extra sweater to keep your fuel bills low, here at Tor Plumbing Services, we’d suggest the first thing to do, if you haven’t already done it this year, is to get your boiler serviced.

An inefficient old boiler is the single biggest culprit when it comes to wasting energy in the home and a simple service from a qualified heating engineer will make sure your boiler isn’t responsible for draining your bank account unnecessarily.

Another hidden culprit, when it comes to wasting energy is a faulty thermostat. Many thermostats, while appearing to work properly to the untrained eye, don’t react as quickly as they did when they were new. 

Old units deteriorate over time and become sluggish to detect changes in temperature, causing them to fail to switch the boiler on or off, exactly when they should, meaning the heating might be staying on too long, making it nice and warm for those comfy and cozy inside but again wasting your energy and costing you more than it should do.

As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, there are a number of other simple actions you can take to make sure your central heating system isn’t causing avoidable problems and vigilance is one of the best preventative actions you can take at home.

Keeping an eye on radiators for slow leaks and cold spots, as well as casting an eye over your boiler from time to time, ensuring there are no drips or watermarks betraying leaks, or making sure the pressure gauge reads between 1-1.5 bar, anything less than 1 bar could result in the boiler failing to ignite.

A drop of pressure of around 0.5 bar in a week might occur following a leak in the system of only a small amount of water per day over that time. It might only be a drip but enough to cause your boiler not to work and maybe at the time you would need it the most!

So all in all, the message we want to get across is that prevention is better than cure, especially in the depths of winter, when temperatures often fall below zero and heating failure can cause much distress but equally important, maintaining your system in good working order will keep your money in your pocket and not result in unnecessarily high fuel bills which might catch you out later in the year when your fuel bill lands on your doormat.

While we would always advise good housekeeping and equipment maintenance to prevent you from suffering an emergency breakdown, be assured that if the worst does happen and you find yourself without heat at any time over the winter period, we’re at the end of the telephone, on hand to come to your rescue and you can be assured that we’ll do everything we can to minimise your distress.

Drop us a message or give us a call if you have any problems or want any advice. We’re always willing to help.