Heating your home this winter

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen a sudden drop in temperatures over the UK with some days reaching below 0°C. We’ve had days of freezing temperatures and even a few flurries of snow (much to the delight of Little Legs). As much as I enjoy the cold crisp mornings, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to force myself to get out of bed, I’d rather just curl up and stay where it is warm and cosy.

Keeping your home heated throughout the cold season can be costly which is why Contact Numbers UK have launched the #WinterHeatingHelp campaign this year to help stay warm this winter without the stress of large energy bills.

Here are a few ways in which you can avoid large gas bills this winter and still benefit from a warm home

Don’t block the heat!

Don’t block heat sources, having furniture or sofas in front of your radiators isn’t going to help when heating your rooms. So when the weather gets colder, rearrange your furniture so that you feel the full effect of your heating.

Be Sensible

To save a little money, turn off or turn down the radiators in rooms that you don’t really use. Not all rooms need to be the same temperature, you can turn down the radiator valves in rooms that aren’t commonly used.

Draught proof your home

Filling in the gaps around windows and doors can help keep your home warmer, investing in some insulating tape will help save money over the colder months. Also little things like closing your blinds and curtains can help keep heat in and draughts out.

Bleed your radiators

Air can trap in your radiators which means they will remain cold at the top, bleed the radiators to let the air out and you’ll find that they are much warmer

Turn down your Thermostat

You don’t have to have your thermostat high to heat you home, find your optimum temperature. Turning it down by as little as 1° can help reduce costs. Aim to set your main room thermostat somewhere between 18°C and 21°C.

Take Control

Set your heating to come on by timer throughout the day, so it’s not on and being wasted when you are out of the house. We set ours to come on first thing in the morning so that the home is lovely and warm when we get up and it turns off just as we are all leaving for the day. Smart Thermostats like Hive Active Heating, can also help save money and energy. Smart thermostats learn how long it takes to heat your home and then turns your heating on at the right time to bring your home up to temperature. This is a great solution if you are out of the house as you can control the with your phone, you no longer have to come back to a cold house and you can change the temperature with just a few taps.

Service or Upgrade your boiler

It’s always handy to have boiler and heating cover so that you can have your boiler serviced. Servicing your boiler can identify any issues that it might have and also you’ll find out if it’s running efficiently. Upgrading an older boiler to a more efficient one can dramatically cut costs over the longer term.

Insulate

A lot of the heat from your home is lost through the roof, insulating your lost can reduce the amount of het that is lost. Whilst insulating your home can cost several hundred pounds, it can also save your hundreds in energy bills over the course of the year.

Smart Meters

Smart meters are a great way of keeping track of how much energy you are using as it will accurately track your energy consumption. We realised that we were using more than we actually needed when we had our Smart Meters installed, it made us a little more conscious of exactly how much energy we were using.

So there we have it, hopefully with #WinterHeatingHelp you can save on your energy bills this winter

Contact Numbers UK have a vast amount of useful numbers to make your lives easier including energy suppliers like the British Gas Contact Number

This post was written in collaboration with Contact Numbers UK