How not to go up with heating costs
IT’S impossible to forget the physical and emotional shock of the winter weather that roared in, in 2010. It had been 40 years since Ireland had seen thickly iced roads, consistent snowfall, and temperatures in the minus teens. The icy grip was especially gruesome for anyone who had ignored a basic winter maintenance check the preceding autumn, on their home’s energy performance. It’s still tepid with October’s wet, balmy breath, but let’s assume the worst and put the house in order.
It’s difficult to spend more than €100-€150 on a full check of a standard boiler system (presuming all’s well) and Electric Ireland are offering a limited offer of gas boiler checks for just €79.
This includes a combustion efficiency test as recommended by Sustainable Energy Ireland. Your engineer for an oil-fed system should be an OFTEC approved installer, and for gas, approved by the RGI. If you have dedicated zone controls, your engineer can advise you on trimming its performance, and plan a 24-hour whole-house cycle using thermostats and timers. Almost 70% of the boilers in Ireland are more than 15 years old and an incentive for an annual overhaul is that all models degrade with use, air will leak into the system, buffering water from the top of radiators. Thermostatic heating valves (TRVs) for key radiators will detect and control temperatures in the room more precisely, and the frost setting is ideal for rarely used rooms. Fit them as far from the rads’ panel as possible, horizontally works well, and don’t hide them behind furnishings. Prices start at €21, (ex installation). Try downstairs temperatures in rooms you use regularly, of 18C and 21C at night, taking this down one degree if you still feel comfortable. Set the hot water cylinder to no more, but no less, than 60 degrees. Less than 60 degrees can invite unhealthy bacteria to breed in the system.
The professionals use a specialised ‘smoke pen’ to detect cunning draughts and gauge their strength. Bjornax do one for about €30. Try this old cheaper trick. Take some tissue, plying it apart to one-ply if possible and tape to something like a long kitchen tool, creating a small flag. We’re looking for flutters in our little breeze sock, so bring it around from skirting to ceiling where you suspect licks of cool air. Some draughts will be old enemies, their path clearly visible. In an older house, some 50% of cold air enters through gaps in windows and doors. Use sections of fibre insulation, expanding polyurethane foam, flexible tube sealant for floors and self-adhesive tape and brush sealers, (for doors), wherever you find unwanted air.
Brush strips cost around €6 for a 100cm door strip. Don’t use one that’s too deep for the door, or it will crush up, making it stick. 6m of foam strip is also around just €6 and ideal for 3-5mm gaps.
If your windows are terminally failing and funds are low, curtains are a first line of defence and the deeper the window boards, the better to create an insulating frame. Install lined heavy curtains flat to the wall, (tracks rather than tab-tops) and ensure the material touches and slightly gathers on the window board.
The truly determined can use Velcro strips to zip the curtains to the wall up the sides of long windows.
An inflated chimney balloon is a quick, cheap and efficient fix for the howler in an unused chimney. Ensure you buy the correct size and type for your flue. From €24. www.chimneyballoon.ie
If your attic is completely uninsulated, as much as 35% of the energy you are using to heat the house is exiting straight up through ceilings and conduit gaps into a cold uninhabited void. For an investment of €500 (professional installation), or €200, (DIY), for a standard attic, you can shore up this waste.
A rough job with thin, rumpled materials desecrates the primary rule of heat control — continuous insulation, without thermal bridges, (gaps), wrapped around your house floor to ceiling. There should be a minimum of 250mm of standard insulation on the floor of the attic. That’s properly fluffed, tight insulation, joist to joist, meeting the wall insulation seamlessly at the wall-plate.
This may demand a roll of insulation running across the original lengths. Measure the floor space by simply multiplying the width of the space by the length, or work this out from your downstairs dimensions, adding 10-15% for tucking into odd corners and up the gable walls.
Put a nice patch larger than its dimensions on the attic door, leaving the underside of any water tank free to be warmed by the higher temperatures downstairs.
If synthetic insulation worries you, see what the Cork-based Irish firm, Ecocel has to offer in economical, blown cellulose pulp. Non-toxic and high environmentally friendly. www.ecocel.ie
Stitched into the house until next April with the windows shut and the heating gasping along, air quality in your home could potentially be as toxic as a city street. The truth is that damp-free, old houses have plenty of passive ventilation through cracks, holes, and the gaping tunnel of open fires, but ventilation is not a draught.
Start with the installation of a carbon monoxide (CO) alarm, if you burn any fuel from briquettes to oil or even wood pellets, you should have a CO alarm in the house. Check the unit has an ‘end of life’ indicator. www.carbonmonoxide.ie.
All houses have some level of air exchange, with fresh air coming in and stale leeching out. Ensure all air vents in walls and windows are unobstructed and working, and on the odd warm day, throw open the windows to create a nice cross breeze from one aspect to another and yank fresh air through the house for even a quick blast.
¦ Thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) cost from just €21 each (uninstalled) and will detect the temperature in the room. Don’t crowd with furniture.
¦ Put timers on your hot water heating systems. A programmable device for the immersion will cost around €45, (ex installation).
¦ Place reflective panels behind radiators set on exterior, masonry walls. Two Heatkeeper panels for a large radiator costs from just €6 and can improve the unit’s performance by 50%. 5 panel packs from €32. www.cosyhomestore.ie
¦ A shower demands 20% of the energy it takes to fill a bath. Choose an electric model from around €200-€300. An energy saving, instant thrill.
¦ If you have a wood burning or solid fuel stove, keep its doors shut while in use, for optimum performance.
¦ Check that all TRVs, (thermostatic radiator valves), are working, as the spring loaded mechanism can stick after being off all summer. A touch of WD40 and a gentle wiggle on the pin will often free them.
¦ Lag your bald copper immersion tank. The tank’s ability to conserve heat increases by over 75% with an 80mm lagging jacket. It will pay for itself in six months. Prices start at just €18 for an 813mm x 458mm jacket measured at the tank’s widest circumference. Belt carefully to close any gaps.
¦ Insulate the hot water pipes between your boiler and your tank (1 metre out from the tank at least). Simple split-sided foam pipe covers can be cut to size and slipped on. Ensure seamless turns and tape up all joins.
From €2 per metre for 18-19mm thick lengths.
¦ A grant of up to €200 is available for attic insulation from SEAI for homes built before 2006 working with a registered SEAI contractor. You must apply for €400 of grant aid overall to qualify. (New budget reliefs may also apply)
¦ Lag the attic water tanks. Small jackets (sides only) cost around €8 with belts.
¦ Try secondary glazing for problem single glazed windows. It’s relatively cheap from around €28 for a small 900X900mm window with 4mm plastic glazing. Gold Star plastic supply Warm Glaze online for self-installation with magnetic tapes. www.goldstarplastics.ie.
¦ Check your taps for any dribbles and leaks. Leaking away water we will soon be paying for, will cost a lot more next year than a new washer.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
