Conservative MP and host clash over deadline to ban gas boilers
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Experts have noted that a simple change in your boiler could help lower household bills by around £200. Currently, families across the country are being gripped by the effects of a major fossil fuel energy crisis, as Ofgem raised the price cap on bills on household energy to an unprecedented £2,500 a year. While this figure is significantly lower than the £3,549 that was set to take hold prior to Prime Minister Liz Truss’ emergency intervention freezing the bills, millions of families face fuel poverty this winter. As families look for ways to lower their energy bills, experts have noted that simply lowering the flow temperature on your boiler, homeowners could save up to 8 percent on their heating bills.
Under current energy prices, this means that households could lower their bills by £200 with a simple energy-saving hack, according to a study by Nesta, a UK innovation charity.
Nesta wrote: “Too many condensing combi boilers in the UK aren’t operating to their maximum efficiency. They’re burning more gas, generating more emissions and costing households more than they need to.”
They advised that boilers should have their flow temperature lowered from 70-80 C to 60°C or lower in order to increase the changes of them running at their optimum 95 percent efficiency.
They added: “This could reduce energy use, and bills, by 6-8 percent per household, without affecting the warmth of the home. This may not seem like a big reduction at first glance, but it’s comparatively large for a small and low-cost change.”
Experts like engineer Michael Walsh, founder of Walsh and Son Ltd, have said that lowering the temperature on your condensing combi boiler, which produces both heating and hot water) to 60°C will essentially help your boiler to achieve higher efficiency.
This is because at that temperature, the boiler is more readily able to condense water vapour, and recover the latent heat from this vapourisation process that would otherwise have been lost.
A report by the Heating and Hot Water Council last year also found that lowering flow temperatures on condensing combi boilers could save homeowners around 6-8 percent on their gas bill.
Aside from saving on energy bills for households, this step could also lower the UK’s gas usage, which is experts have warned if critical if the country hopes to prevent blackouts this winter.
Households and businesses across the UK could face planned power cuts this winter, if the country is unable to import electricity supplies from Europe, the National Grid has warned.
The utility company responsible for the distribution of energy unveiled its plans to ration supplies as the UK struggles to secure enough gas imports to fuel its gas-fired power plants.
Under these plans, households in different parts of the country would be notified a day in advance of the three-hour blocks of time during which their power would be cut off, in an effort to lower the UK’s total energy consumption by 5 percent.
The National Grid also warned that in the “unlikely event” that the company fails to secure gas supplies, consumers could face a situation where they are left without power for “pre-defined periods” during the day, in a effort to “ensure the overall security and integrity of the electricity system across Great Britain”.
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Energy Guide spokeswoman Jennifer Warren said: “One such step people can immediately take is to reduce the boiler flow temperature on their boilers.”
She continued: “In fact, a recent report from the Heating and Hot Water Council (HHIC) suggests that households can save 6.4 to 8 percent energy by reducing the heating system to the mean flow temperature of 50°C on their condensing combi boilers.
“Most modern boilers are advertised as being over 92 percent efficient and A-rated, however, when using the default manufacturers settings this isn’t typically the case.
“We thought this was a very easy hack that almost any household can employ in a matter of minutes.
“Changing your boiler’s flow temperature is an easy and effective way to immediately start saving up to eight percent on your gas bill.”
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