There's nothing better than feeling warm and toasty on a cold winter morning. However, heating your home can be quite expensive and while you may enjoy the heat now, you certainly won't like to see your heating bill! Thankfully, there are many ways that you can improve the heating efficiency of your home so that it requires less energy to keep your home warm. These tips should be implemented before the winter months so that you can save as much money as possible. With that said, let's get started!

Schedule Maintenance Services On Your Central Heating System

Unfortunately, many people don't schedule maintenance and servicing on their central heating system. As a result, this causes the system to work less efficiently over time, meaning that you'll need to turn up the heat all the way up, just to get a warm trickle of air. This happens because sludge forms in the pipes of the system and this prevents efficient heating. Sludge is basically a dark substance that is made from the reaction between air, water, the metal of the pipes and lime scale. This sludge causes blockages in the pipes and valves of your heating system which greatly reduces its ability to heat your home properly.

Regular maintenance work can help to prevent sludge and in particular a power flush. This power flush conducted by a local plumber will flush out all of the sludge in the heating system while inserting a chemical inhibitor to prevent the sludge from occurring again, for about 10 years. This will cost in the region of £200 - £500 depending on the size of your system. However, once it is done, your home will heat up much faster and easily, without using much energy. This will reduce your heating bills significantly.

Buy A Programmable Thermostat

There are basically four different types of thermostats that can be used in your home; manual or mechanical, programmable, learning or smart and a digital non-programmable thermostat. The main difference between the programmable and smart thermostat from the rest is that they can be made to increase or decrease temperatures at specific times during the day or night according to your personal schedule. As a result, you can set the thermostat at higher temperatures when you're home and lower temperatures when you're not home. This will ensure that your home is only using energy when its actually needed.

In particular, smart or learning thermostats are able to automatically detect when people are home so that it will automatically increase the temperature. It can also learn the right temperature to set your home at, since it will learn based on past adjustments. Also, the majority of these modern smart thermostats can be connected to home automation systems such as Alexa, Google Home etc. You can even connect it to your smartphone in order to determine when everyone has left the home.

Seal Your Home

Thirdly, another great option that will help to maximise heating efficiency is simply sealing your home. When you seal your home, you will prevent the warm air within your home from escaping. Most homes usually have lots of air leaks and these can cause the warm air to escape, causing the temperatures within your home to drop rapidly. It is highly recommended that you hire a heating professional to do an energy audit of your home so that they can identify these leaks and then seal them properly.

Do A Home Energy Audit

As mentioned previously, a home energy audit can help to determine where the air leaks are in your home so that they can be sealed. However, an energy audit can also help you to understand how you are using energy, where that energy is being wasted and the different ways that you can make your home more energetically efficient. When you hire local energy professionals to do the energy audit, they will also analyse your central heating system and suggest ways in which you can improve it.

We have just looked at a few ways that you can maximise your home's heating efficiency. There are many more ways to do so and it is highly encouraged that you continue doing more research. Once you implement at least one or two of the above suggestions, you will definitely be able to save on your energy bill while keeping yourself and your family warm.