With gas prices so high what’s the best way to reduce gas consumption.
Heat pump vs Gas boiler.
There’s a lot of talk about heat pumps on the news, however, it is still not a viable option for the majority of houses. This is because of the limitations of heat pumps. Gas boilers provide much hotter radiators than a heat pump can. The majority of heating systems have been designed with this in mind, so if you replace a boiler with a heat pump it is unlikely that it will be capable of heating your home without fitting much larger radiators or underfloor heating. Even with fitting larger radiators it’s still unlikely that the central heating pipework would be adequate so you are really looking at a completely new system. This is obviously going to add a lot of cost and disruption to the heat pump installation. There are grants available for heat pumps but even taking these into account it is unlikely to be an effective way of saving money. For new build heat pumps make sense but until improvements are made to the technology this is not the route to go down if saving money is your main concern.
Old boiler vs New Boiler
This is where the biggest improvement can be made. If you still have an old boiler then large improvements can be made by upgrading to a new highly efficient boiler, obviously, the cost of the installation must be taken into account but with gas prices so high at the moment this has never made more sense.
Controls
How the system is operated can have an impact on how much gas is used. Modulating controls save over older thermostats by changing the heat output of the boiler (however you will need a modern boiler for this to work)
Hot water cylinder vs Combi
If you have an old hot water cylinder great savings can be made by upgrading to a good combi boiler. When you store hot water it has to be stored very hot 60-65c to ensure legionella doesn’t form, this is way hotter than you need for shower/bath or washing 38-40c. Because a combi doesn’t store the water there is no need to heat it to such a hot temperature. Also, with a cylinder, you may be heating 150 litres of water a day but only using a fraction of it, with a combi you only pay for what you use.
Most of the ways of saving on your gas consumption are going to take some investment, however, there are some things you can do that cost nothing.
Turn the boiler down. I don’t mean your room thermostat although that will obviously work but you will be cold. Turn the flow thermostat down on the boiler, this means when the heating is on the radiators will not be as hot, it cost slightly less to heat your house up more slowly this way, however, if it’s very cold outside this may not be an option. Room control, A remarkably simple way of reducing your bills is to ensure you are only heating the rooms you need to, even if you don’t have thermostatic radiator valves radiators can still be turned off using the lockshield valve.