Find out what heating control settings work best for you
The advice on this site should provide good guidelines on ways to reduce your heating bills, but don’t forget that every home is different. Your heating system, your building, and the amount of insulation will all have an affect on your bills, as will the preferences and lifestyles of the people who live there.
Think about how you want your home to be heated: When do you want to be warm? How warm do you want your home to be? When do you need hot water? By answering these questions and comparing these with the settings on your system’s controls, you will start to see where savings can be made.
Following the advice on this website should help you save energy, but if you want to see what works for you we recommend the following process:
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Look at the weather forecast for two days coming up where the temperatures will be similar. This is important as the outside temperature can have a big effect on how much energy you need for heating, so you want consistent days.
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Find a convenient time to take meter readings, so you can take a reading at the same time each day. Ideally this needs to be before your heating system goes on or after it goes off, and you will want a reading on either the day before or the day after the two days you are checking so that each pair of readings cover a 24-hour period. (For example, if you chose 11pm, then you would start the day before, while if it was 6am you would include the day after.)
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On the first day you are comparing you should keep the settings as they were. On the second day you should adjust the heating controls to the settings that you think will save you energy.
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Compare the meter readings before and after the first day, against the meter readings before and after the second day. You should see how much you have saved. (You should also check that the outside temperatures did actually stay consistent for the two days, otherwise you will need to repeat the test.)
