Hints and Tips
There are some simple steps you can take to maximise your boiler’s performance and ensure the efficient use of your heating system and its components. We suggest that you familiarise yourself with the temperature controls and pressure gauge.
Northern Gas Heating offers a wide variety of control options, ranging from easy-to-operate mechanical devices to much more sophisticated digital and wireless radio frequency programmers. The key word is flexibility: whatever your lifestyle, there’s a choice of controls to match your needs.
Why are effective controls so important? Apart from the very desirable benefits, the controls enable you to minimise energy consumption by reducing temperature levels – but without any sacrifice in comfort. For example, if your room thermostat is set to 21ºC (a typical temperature setting) and you reduce it to 20ºC, your heating energy consumption can be cut by 6-10%. The more sophisticated the controls you choose, the more precisely you can set temperature and time settings. And by timing your heating and hot water periods in tune with your lifestyle, you can reduce wasteful overheating.
Room Thermostat
This will be in the hallway or living room. It controls the temperature of the whole home, based on the room it is in.
Correct setting: 21ºC for pensioners and families with young children. Between 18 to 21ºC for everyone else. Note - turning up the room thermostat will not heat up the room faster but it will make the room warmer.
Cylinder Thermostat
This will be on the hot water tank. It controls the temperature of the hot water coming out of the taps.
Correct setting: 60ºC or 140ºF.
Radiator Thermostat
You can find one of these on each radiator. It allows you to have different temperatures in each room.
Correct setting: Start off at a middle setting and turn it down a notch if too warm and up a notch if too cool. If the radiators go cool, and the room is warm, this is normal and means the thermostat is doing its job.
Typically, the numbers on the dial represent the following average room temperatures (shown in Celsius):
So, for example, if a radiator goes off when the setting is at 4 on the thermostat, it means that the room temperature has reached 18 degrees.
Programmer
This can control the time you want the heating and hot water to switch on and off. Make sure it is set to suit your lifestyle rather than ruling your life!
Set it to come on half an hour before you get up or come in, and switch off half an hour before you go out or go to bed. You can also set it to come on and go off twice a day.
