Top tips to reduce your heating bills

Your central heating system is one of the biggest contributors to your household bills, so it's important to make sure you're not paying more than you need to. 

Energy used for heating and hot water accounts for more than half of a household's energy bills, according to the Energy Saving Trust. Energy prices are currently high, and likely to remain so for a while, but there are improvements you can make to your home heating system to make it more efficient and save money. 

Decarbonisation of heat is one of the biggest challenges we face in meeting our target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  

Reducing our energy use is a win-win: not only will it save us money, but it will help protect the planet from the impact of climate change.

Struggling to pay your energy bills? Here's where to get help.

1. Make sure your boiler is running efficiently

Ensure you understand everything your boiler offers. Familiarise yourself with the manual, which you should be able to find online if you've lost it. 

This may sound obvious, but how many of us actually know much about what our boiler is doing? Your boiler's settings play a key role in the performance and efficiency of your heating system, but many homeowners aren't sure what to do with them. This will also make your home more comfortable. 

Use your boiler timer or programmer

Learn how to use your boiler timer or programmer, if you don't already know.

A timer allows you to schedule when your boiler turns on and off over a 24-hour period, so you don't have to do it manually. A programmer gives you even more options, allowing you to set different times and temperatures throughout the week.

This helps you save money as you won't be heating your home at a time that you don't need it. 

You could set the central heating programme to turn on half an hour before you get up, or before you come home from work, for example, and to switch off half an hour before you go to bed. Consider setting it to switch the heating off 20 minutes before you usually go out, as there will still be residual heat in your home.

Check that the clock on the programmer is correct before you set your programmes. 

Find out more about boiler controls and how they can save you money.

Get your boiler serviced annually

Worryingly, only 20% of boiler owners get an annual service, according to government figures. 

Ask your boiler engineer to confirm it's set up to maximise efficiency. Our guide to getting the best boiler service goes into more detail about this. 

Getting an annual boiler service will also reduce your chances of incurring a hefty repair bill.

Don't scrap a fully-functioning boiler to save money on your energy bills. 

A note of caution: don't think you need to scrap a boiler than still works well. 

While it's true that very old boilers can cost more to run than new ones:

• Boiler Plus regulations (which stipulate that boilers must run at 92% efficiency) came into force some time ago: in 2018. So this may already apply to your boiler, depending when you bought it. 
• You'll face high up front costs that you simply don't need to spend
• We all eventually need to move away from gas boilers towards low carbon heating, to stop global warming. Replacing your boiler prematurely will lock you into burning fossil fuels for longer. As home heating experts The Heating Hub explain it: 'Whether we feel comfortable with the prospect of a heat pump or not at this point, they are coming and the best thing you can do is keep your boiler going until you're ready to fit one. The technology will improve, get cheaper, maybe smaller and will definitely become more familiar. You may not be ready to fit a heat pump today, but you will feel ready in 5 years time. If you have kept your old boiler going, it will feel like a natural time to replace it. If you are faced with swapping out a recently fitted boiler, you may defer the switch for many more years and delay the decarbonisation of your home'. 

Best boilers – if you do need a new boiler, read our expert advice on choosing the right one for your home.

2. Clean your radiator system

Keeping your system water (the water that lives in your pipes and radiators) clean and free of sludge will make your heating system more efficient.

It’s also good for the ongoing life of your boiler and central heating. 

A clear sign that your system may be overly sludgy is if you have cold spots at the bottom on your radiators, or if some of your radiators take an age to heat up compared to others.

If you're getting a new boiler, a clean system is also essential to validate the manufacturer's warranty on your new boiler.

Ensure that your installer completes the Benchmark commissioning documentation to confirm that this has been done.

But a heating engineer can flush out your radiators and pipes separately to a new boiler installation, and this can be a useful bit of maintenance to carry out.

Does my radiator system need a power flush?

Here are the different ways your system can be cleaned:

• Gravity flush: A gravity flush can be done yourself if you're a competent DIY enthusiast. It simply means draining the water in your radiator system and replacing it with new clean water
• Power flush: A power flush will be more effective at removing sludge from your system, but it does require specialist equipment and can be expensive. 
• Chemical flush: A chemical flush is a lighter clean with a chemical that will help to more gently ease the muck out of the radiator. A chemical flush doesn't require high-pressure equipment, so should be a bit cheaper than the full power flush treatment.

After any of these processes, a chemical inhibitor should be added to the system water to prevent further sludge build up.

It's important to remember that if you ever add system water to top up the pressure of your boiler system, more inhibitor will need to be added to keep the concentration at the correct level.

Products like magnetic filters can also be very effective at keeping your system water in a good state. They capture materials within a sealed system, which predominantly come from the radiators, and keep your system water clean.

Some boiler manufacturers, like Worcester Bosch, offer a longer warranty on some of their boiler ranges if installed with a filter.

In areas with particularly hard water, a water softening filter is a sensible precaution to prevent limescale build up on critical boiler parts – such as the hot water heat exchanger. 

Signs you need a new boiler – find out if you need an upgrade or just a repair.

3. Check your radiators are balanced

You could have clean system water, but a badly balanced heating system will result in you spending more money heating up your home than you need to. 

Are your radiators balanced? The image above shows the impact of an unbalanced heating system on a typical household.

In an unbalanced system, when you set the thermostat to 20°C, the upstairs might actually reach 23°C, while downstairs, where most of us spend the majority of our day, will still be too cold.

If you turn the thermostat up until downstairs reaches a comfortable temperature, upstairs is overheated, resulting in a thermostat that’s set at too high a temperature, leading to higher bills.

According to the Energy Saving Trust, increasing the temperature by just one degree will increase your annual heating bill by about 10%. So, it pays to set your thermostat as low as possible to still keep your home comfortable to live in. 

If you are having a new boiler installed, your system will need to be re-balanced. After the installation, you should insist that your heating engineer provides proof that your system has been balanced before paying for the installation.

Ask to see the engineer's Benchmark agreement, or simply run the heating for a few hours to check that your system is properly balanced.

Read about how to balance and bleed your radiators.

4. Turn down the flow temperature of your combi boiler

You only really need to have your boiler on its highest setting in the very depths of winter. Otherwise your boiler is needlessly heating water up to a very high temperature and wasting energy.

It could also mean that your condensing boiler doesn't even condense. The easiest way to make sure your boiler is condensing is to not set the flow temperature of the boiler too high. This is the temperature of the water that is sent to your radiators.

A flow temperature of 60-65°C will let the boiler run more efficiently while ensuring that it condenses, because the water will return to the boiler at 55°C or lower, which will cause condensation to form.

The Energy Savings Trust says that turning down the flow temperature can improve your boiler efficiency by around 4% to 5%, but that this depends on factors such as what your boiler was previously set to and whether you decide to keep your home cooler than before.

If you have a dirty or poorly balanced system, this will also have an impact on the return temperature of the water to your boiler, and its ability to condense.

Is your boiler actually condensing?

Condensing boilers recover heat that would usually be lost from combustion gases by condensing water vapour within the gas. This releases heat energy that is then transferred into the cooler, returned water from your radiator system.

All modern boilers, whether they're combi boilers, system boilers or heat-only boilers, are condensing boilers. If you're not sure whether you have a condensing boiler, check to see if your boiler has a condensation drain pipe in addition to the flue gas pipe. If there's no condensation pipe, you don't have a condensing boiler.

Condensing boilers are more efficient than old style boilers, so can save you substantial amounts of money each year on your heating bills.

Critically, condensing boilers only condense if the return water is at around 55°C or lower. If it's at a higher temperature than this, your boiler is not condensing.

Somewhat depressingly, due to poor installations, there are thousands of condensing boilers installed every year that don't condense, so they don't deliver the promised efficiency gains.

If you want to know whether your condensing boiler is condensing, you can check the temperature of the water return flow pipe (or inflow pipe) with a digital thermometer.

You can consult your boiler's guide to identify the inflow and outflow pipes, and simply measure their temperatures with a digital thermometer.

A healthy heating system will have about a 20°C difference in temperature.

How to choose the best energy company – make sure you're with the right one for you.

5. Get the most from your room thermostat

The hotter you have your home, the more money you'll spend heating it. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that turning down your main thermostat by just one degree could save about 10% on your energy bill. 

That said, make sure your home is warm enough in cold weather to ensure you're not jeopardizing your health. 18-21°C  is the ideal temperature range. 

Thermostat temperature tips

• Set the room thermostat to 18°C and then turn it up by one degree each day until you find a temperature you're comfortable with. Note that the ideal temperature for you might be higher if you're vulnerable or you have impaired mobility and so can't move about to keep yourself warm
• Room thermostats need a free flow of air to sense the temperature accurately – they must not be covered by curtains or blocked by furniture. Nearby electric fires, televisions or lamps could also stop them from working properly
• Many room thermostats are for one room only, and will turn your boiler off when the room it's in reaches the set temperature. For this reason, it's best to have your thermostat in a room you use all the time.

Boiler controls and thermostats – learn more about how you can control your heating.

6. Consider zoning your heating

Instead of just having one room thermostat, you can have separate heating circuits, each with their own room thermostat or programmer. This allows you to zone the temperatures in different areas of your home.

If you have a smart thermostat, you can use smart radiator valves to create heating zones in different rooms as well.

Setting lower temperatures for parts of your home you use infrequently – such as a spare bedroom – or only heating some at certain times of the day, like an office, will save energy and money.

Best smart thermostats – discover the models that came out top in our lab tests.

7. Set your thermostatic radiator valves low

As with your room thermostat, you should set the thermostatic radiator valves (TRV) in each room at a low level, then gradually turn them up until the room's left at a comfortable temperature.

Turning a TRV to a higher setting will not make the room heat up any faster – that depends on the boiler size and setting, and the radiator size. All it will do is keep heating the room until it’s at the temperature designated by the TRV.

Despite their name, radiators actually work by convection. This means cold air enters at the bottom and is drawn through the radiator. Hot air then leaves through the top.

You can reduce your heating costs by ensuring each radiator in your home is able to circulate heat properly. For example, moving furniture away, not using cabinets to disguise them, and making sure they're not covered by curtains.

You can also get smart radiator valves that you can adjust from your phone.

8. Insulate your home

In winter, heat will flow out from all heated living spaces to unheated attics, garages, basements, and to the outdoors. Heat can also be lost through interior ceilings, walls, and floors – wherever there is a difference in temperature, because heat moves from warmer to colder areas. 

To keep your home comfortable, the heat lost in the winter must be replaced by your heating system. So you pay more to heat our homes, and burn more fossil fuels in the process, because so much heat is being lost. 

Insulating your home will decrease this heat flow by resisting this flow of heat. The UK has some of the least energy-efficient homes in Europe. Hence groups like Insulate Britain and RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) are urging the government to implement a national retrofit strategy. 

In practice, however, the government has said that this is down to each homeowner, arguing that 'the British people are no-nonsense pragmatists who can make decisions based on the information.’ 

It's therefore on you to insulate your own home. Not only will this lower your energy bills and cut your carbon emissions, it could also help you get a higher EPC for your home, making it more attractive to future buyers should you want to sell. 

You may be able to get financial support via the government's Great British Insulation scheme.

Before you begin, find out how energy efficient your home is, understand how to insulate your home and discover the the problems with spray foam insulation.

Ways to save on a heat pump

The government plans to phase out the installation of fossil fuel gas boilers. After this, newly installed heating systems will need to be low carbon or able to be converted to use clean fuel.

A full switch is still some way into the futurem but ultimately the transition will result in cleaner domestic heating. 

For now, households are still able to install gas boilers when they are replacing an old one. But if you're in a position to, you may want to consider a heat pump as an option. The initial costs of installing low-carbon heating systems, such as heat pumps, are higher than new boilers, but there is currently financial support for installing renewable heating systems. 

The main government grant is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which can provide as much as £7,500 towards an installation. 

Whether or not you'll save on energy bills depends on how efficiently your heat pump is running, how effectively you use it and how well-insulated your home is. Plus, how much you're paying for the electricity used to power your heat pump. Many energy companies are starting to offer specialist tariffs to heat pump owners that provide a significant discount. 

Our guide explains more about heating your home with renewable energy. 

Looking to save money on your electricity costs as well? Head to our guide to the other ways to save at home with 10 ways cut your energy costs