Over the past year, in particular, people have been looking for ways to save money and reduce their energy usage, particularly when it comes to their water and heating bills.
There are often plenty of actions individuals can take to help with their bills from booking a gas boiler service to pre-empt any potential problems or inefficiencies, to exploring different energy suppliers.
With energy bills increasing at an unprecedented rate, people are looking for every possible avenue to save money, with some tips and hacks being relatively useful and others being heated snake oil.
However, a challenge that has gone viral over the latter half of 2022 and into 2023 argues that households can save £112 a year on average by changing one simple setting on their boiler without even noticing a change in heat.
The most astonishing aspect of it is that it has a considerable level of support from the industry and evidence to support its efficacy.
Here is how the Money Saving Boiler Challenge works.
- The Fundamental Basis
The challenge, led by Nesta (the National Endowment for Science, Technology And The Arts), is based around the flow temperature of a boiler. Specifically, it is based around changing the flow temperature for the water travelling around your radiator system.
On most combination boiler systems, there will be temperature settings for both radiators and taps, so turning down the radiator heating will not reduce the temperature of hot water, which is a necessary part of ensuring hygienic cleaning practices.
The theory is that by turning the flow temperature down from its maximum setting (between 75 and 85 degrees Celsius) to around 55-60 degrees, you can reduce the amount of gas being used without feeling any colder.
As well as this, all modern combi boilers have a condensing mode, where heat exchangers are used to reducing the level of wasted steam and gases, reducing emissions and using less energy in the process.
These modes need to run at lower temperatures to work at their most efficiently, and according to research collated by Which, it can save up to nine per cent on gas bills although the exact saving will vary considerably depending on the pipework and heating system the boiler is connected to.
- Does It Work With All Boilers?
No, it does not. The Money Saving Boiler Challenge notes that this can only be done with modern combi boilers, and there are a few reasons as to why.
If you somehow still have a boiler made before April 2005 that is still running and does not have a condenser setting, you cannot use this method.
Nor can you use this method if you have a hot water tank instead of a combination boiler, and it can, in fact, be dangerous to attempt the challenge with a hot water boiler.
The reason for this is that unlike a combi boiler, which heats water on demand and can have separate settings for hot water and radiator flow, a water tank boiler stores hot water directly, often using an immersion heater to keep the water at a temperature over 65 degrees.
The reason for this is to avoid the risk of legionella growing in the cylinder, which given that this tank supplies both the radiators and hot water supply could be very dangerous indeed.