Can zonal heating help you save money?

In a world that is in the throes of a cost-of-living crisis, made worse by constantly rising energy bills, it is no surprise that most of us are looking for ways in which we can save on our heating bills this winter. There are lots of ways that you can do this, but it seems that zonal heating is one of the most effective. So, what is zonal heating and how can it help you to save money?

What is zonal heating?

Zonal heating is essentially how heat is used throughout your home. It can refer to only heating the most frequently used areas or the spots that are in need of this the most.

For example, it might mean only heating the living room if you are all watching TV in there at night, heating the kitchen before you get up in a morning, or just turning on the bathroom towel rail before you have a shower. You can achieve this by manually turning off radiators in each room, or by using a smart heating system that you can programme according to how you use the house.

By turning your home into different zones, whether it is individual rooms or floors, you can have greater control on how the heat in your home is dispersed and how much money you are spending on it.

Cost savings

One of the biggest advantages of zonal heating is the amount of money that it is capable of saving you. For example, if you rarely use your dining room, there is no point in heating it, as this is simply dead money, and you will not benefit from the heat that is produced. By avoiding heating the areas that you are not using, you can drastically reduce the amount that you are spending on your heating bills.

It is actually estimated that zonal heating could save people between 8.4% and 16.5% of their heating bills, which can add up to some massive savings.

As a zonal heating system is often also more efficient than a traditional heating system, it can also reduce the wear and tear that is incurred, meaning you can also save on maintenance and repair costs.

How can I use zonal heating?

One of the simplest ways to start using zonal heating is to turn off the radiators that you are not using, but this can be problematic. The manual element of this means it is easy to forget to turn things off, and equally easy to forget to turn them back on again. The effort involved means that many people soon get out of the habit of doing it and are not able to enjoy the savings.

Smart electric radiators and thermostats are now one of the most popular ways to achieve zonal heating as they combine simplicity and convenience. This links your phone to the heating system in your house, allowing you to have full control at all times.

This might mean that you choose to only heat the upstairs, or that you simply want a warm living room. You will have the ability to switch these manually or you can set up programmes that turn things off and on at set times according to the way that you typically use your home.

It seems that energy bills are never likely to decrease unless we take positive action to bring them down ourselves, and switching to zonal heating can be something that you feel the benefit of overnight. It has huge cost savings as well as a positive environmental impact and so is now becoming something that is being adopted throughout more and more homes across the UK.