What temperature should my home be?
The Energy Saving Trust recommends heating your home to between 18 to 21 degrees Celsius during winter.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests 18 degrees is the ideal temperature for healthy and well-dressed people.
The Age UK guide suggests older people heat their main living areas to 21 degrees, while heating the rest of their home to at least 18 degrees.
- A temperature of less than nine degrees has the potential to lead to hypothermia.
- A temperature of nine to twelve degrees or above 24 degrees increases the risk of strokes and heart attacks.
‘Wet’ central heating systems
‘Wet’ central heating systems pump heated water around either a radiator system, an underfloor heating system, or a combination of the two.
Wet systems use a boiler to heat the water, and are fuelled by burning different types of fuel, such as gas or oil.
Over the last few years, more renewable heating systems have become available called ‘heat pumps’ which are split into two sections, an ‘air-source’ heat pump and a ‘ground-source’ heat pump.
Heat pumps are more efficient than burning gas or oil, as they extract heat from the ground or air and transfer it around your home.
Electric heating systems
Electric boilers use an element to heat water, similar to how electricity heats water in a kettle.
Electric radiators use a heating element that warms the air in a room. They can be used independently, or alongside a central heating system. However, they are more expensive to run than gas or oil fuelled radiators.
Storage heaters, sometime knows as ‘Economy 7’, typically draw electricity overnight and store heat to release during the day. Night time electricity tariffs, such as Economy 7, are generally cheaper than day time tariffs, making storage heaters cheaper to run than electric radiators.
Electric underfloor heating uses heated cables to transfer heat to a room through the floor.
Electric heating systems are often cheaper to install than wet systems and are more energy efficient than gas systems. They also have a lower carbon footprint. However, electricity is more expensive than gas and is best used with cheaper tariffs, such as Economy 7.
Ofgem
Find out more about Economy 7 at www.ofgem.gov.uk
Generating electricity
If you generate your own electricity, you could save money on your electricity use as well as reduce your carbon footprint.
Visit the Energy Saving Trust website for more information about Generating renewable electricity
Ducted heating
Ducted heating uses a boiler to heat warm air and transfer it throughout the house via ducts or air vents.
Oil central heating
Oil-fired central heating is commonly used in more rural areas where homes cannot be connected to the mains gas supply. Oil is stored in large tanks outside the home and burned to fuel the heating and hot water system.
LPG central heating
LPG, or Liquid Petroleum Gas, uses gas to power the central heating system in the same way as a mains gas ‘wet’ system. However, like oil central heating, the LPG is stored in tanks outside the home. LPG is generally more expensive than oil, but is more efficient.
Other ways of heating your home
The Energy Saving Trust provides information, advice and guidance on other ways to heat your home, including
- Heat pumps
- Biomass
- Solar water heating
- Thermal energy stores
- Micro combined heat and power
Visit the Energy Saving Trust website for more Help and advice for heating your home.
Heat networks
Heat networks distribute heat or cooling from a central source or sources, and deliver it to a variety of different customers such as public buildings, shops, offices, hospitals, universities and homes. By supplying multiple buildings, they avoid the need for individual boilers or electric heaters in every building.
Find out more about Heat networks at Gov.uk.
