How to Make the Most out of your Central Heating

Having a wood burning or multi-fuel stove may seem like extravagance or a luxury fitting for your home. However, having a stove installed in your house will provide you with much more than a decorative centrepiece for your living room, greatly increasing both the efficiency and warmth of your home as well as saving you a lot of money in the long run.

Benefits of Stoves

Modern log burning and multi fuel stoves are perhaps one of the most effective ways to heat your home when used correctly. By trapping the heat and combustion of the fire in a closed space, stoves are far more efficient at heating a room than open fire places and their metal structure also helps emit the heat they produce.

Most modern stoves are also built with multiple air vents to keep warm air flowing out of the stove and allow cool air in, helping the fire burn at maximum efficiency. Installing a stove fan can also greatly increase the heat spread of a stove, pushing the warm air further away from the fire and out into the surrounding room and house.

There are also a few ways you can increase the efficiency and heat production of a stove even further. Using dried, seasoned wood makes for a cleaner and hotter combustion within the stove and is also a far greener fuel to use than coal.

Another fuel option that can help increase the heat production and efficiency of a stove is Eco Fuel. Eco-Fuel is designed to burn cleanly and slowly, producing consistent high temperatures for a long time, especially within the enclosed space of a stove.

Using Stoves to Heat the Home

Because they are confined to one particular room, it might seem stoves are rather limited in where they can provide heat for your home. However, a wood burning or multi fuel stove can in fact heat far more than your living room and can even heat your whole home.

By installing a back boiler or integrated boiler into a stove it is possible to connect it to the central heating system of your home. Depending on the size of your house, you can either use this to contribute towards an existing boiler or be used to heat the vast majority of your radiator/hot water system.

If used in this way, a stove will not only heat the room it is within, but the whole house, as well as saving money on your energy bills. If you really want to make the most out of your stove you can even connect it to underfloor heating systems, providing further warmth and comfort for the house.

Making the Most out of your Heating

Whilst stoves are an incredibly efficient way to heat your home, they are a number of other ways you can increase the heating efficiency of your home and make sure none of it is wasted.

Here a few simple things you can do in your home to ensure you are getting the most out of your stove’s heat:

• Insulation: This may seem like an obvious suggestion; however, many households may have outdated insulation or you may simply assume your house is insulated when in fact it’s not. Making sure you have modern insulation in cavity walls and the roof can keep huge amounts of heat in your home, increasing its energy efficiency and saving a lot of money. Double glazed windows and closing curtains during the night will also help keep heat in the home.
• Checking your Central Heating: Even if subsidised by a stove, your central heating system needs to be maintained and updated to make the most out of the stove’s heat and your boiler’s. Cleaning out pipes or replacing them, as well as insulating them, can go a long way to increase the efficiency of your central heating system and make sure you have an up-to-date combination boiler.
• Turn the Thermostat Down: turning your thermostat down by just a few degrees can save a lot of energy that would otherwise be wasted. This is particularly true if you have your stove burning, and whilst it is not healthy for your central heating system to be completely turned off, it’s certainly worth turning it right down when you are using your stove.
• Radiators: Fitting thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) on your radiators will allow you to control heating within your home and turn it up or down, room by room, depending on your needs. This can be done in combination with a timed/digital thermostat to create ‘zones’ in your house that will be heated when needed. The efficiency of radiators can also be increased by making sure they are not blocked by any pieces of furniture or covered in any way.

By taking these simple measures into account and using your stove as the main heating source in combination with your central heating system, your home will not only be warm and comfortable but incredibly energy efficient, saving money on your energy bills and making the most out of your stove’s heating potential.