As bills rocket higher and higher, we are all looking for ways to reduce our bills (as well as carbon emissions).

An increasingly popular suggestion from energy experts (and occasionally even politicians) is to turn down the ‘flow temperature’ of your condensing gas boiler. Essentially, this means having your radiators a little cooler: at, say, 40^ºC or 50^°C rather than 70^°C which allows your gas boiler to run more efficiently without reducing the room temperature.

Studies show that this can reduce your heat consumption by around 8%, potentially saving hundreds of pounds, making it one of the most simple yet high-impact ways to cut our gas consumption and energy bills.

Nesta have developed a helpful tool which walks you through how to check if you have the right boiler (80% of the UK do but less in rural areas without mains gas) and then adjust your boiler to run more efficiently. You can find it here.

The tool will help you find your boiler and check it is a gas combination boiler:

And it then explains how to adjust your flow temperature:

The tool suggests setting it at 55^ºC which is much lower than the 70^ºC or 80^ºC that many are set to by default, but the lower you go the more efficiently it will run.

BUT it may also take longer to get the house warm, particularly if the house is old or draughty, or has small or old radiators – so bear this in mind and consider readjusting if needed.

Heat pumps tend to run at 45^ºC to radiators, so if you find that your gas boiler keeps the house warm with a flow temperature below 50^ºC then you also know that your house is ‘heat pump ready’!

As winter sets in or in a cold snap, if the house doesn’t get warm you can run the boiler for a bit longer or nudge the flow temperature back up a bit to make sure you keep warm.

(article by Calum Harvey-Scholes (C.Harvey-Scholes@exeter.ac.uk) and this initiative supported and endorsed by Falenergy and Transition Falmouth)