Saving on heating bills

Ours is about 8 years old, and relatively quiet. However, because of where it is sited, it almost invariably wakes me up, so our heating is set to come on 10 minutes before the alarm.

It’s the type of noise as much as its volume which determines how disturbing it - continuous hums are particularly annoying and tend to be hard to block. Last night, I tried ear phones, plus a pillow and the quilt over my head, but I still couldn’t shut it out.

 

As tenants we're not allowed to make alterations to the fabric of the building, but the design of the windows here is such that it would be logistically impossible to fit secondary double glazing anyway.

 

Perhaps it's time to get innovative, a sheet of Perspex that fits over the glass and can be stuck to the window frame with something like Blutack might do the trick.

As an aside, it is compulsory for all new homes in NZ to have double glazing, for insulation. We have it and it does block out most sound, except the warning sign a reversing truck makes at 3am after delivery of the mail to the sorting office. Sometimes it wakes me and sometimes I get back to sleep and other times I lie awake for about 3 hours, most annoying.

 

OK, just to clarify things - we already have double glazing on all our windows.

Also, my comments about the noise from this heat pump were intended as a general observation. The continuous hum can be heard during the day too, both in our house and outside. When we were out for a walk, we could still hear the noise 150 yards or so away, which gives an idea of the sort of noise impact as more people install them.

 

On the subject of noise and getting used to same (and nothing to do with Heat Pumps), I have twice in my life lived directly alongside a main road. The first time (newly married in the 60's , living in a first floor flat, part of a very old building with single glazed windows) the road outside was the A5 a very busy trunk road; busy by day and night. I well recall my parents visiting and staying with us and my mother who liked windows to be open day and night saying..."how on earth do you live with the noise"? I said well in your 3-day visit you won't but after a relatively short time it is hardly noticeable, and rarely commented upon. It is what it is.

After about a year we qualified for a Council house in my wife's birth village a few miles away. When visiting my mother remarked how quiet everything was and no traffic fumes when the windows were open. She did comment on being awoken by a local morning Rooster and was surprised when I said we were used to it.

The second time also happens to be the present but the road is not a trunk road, just a main bus route through the town. The house is fully double glazed and traffic noise is mainly throughout the day. It is just a background noise and part of the environment in which we live; barely discernible because of the double glazing, and only slightly less so when the windows are open. Occasionally when sitting in the back garden at the height of summer the odd heavy traffic noise of lorry may intrude on our consciousness, but again barely worthy of comment.

Of course when we have visitors they -like my mother many years before - ask "How do you put up with all that traffic"? They are rarely consoled by our answering, "What traffic"? If staying for a week the question of traffic noise rarely crops up again.

It is only NEW noises that cause irritation - chain saws, cutting tools, power saws and yes generator hums (although not as yet from Heat Pumps) they can be a nuisance. But even then -providing the noise is not of a decibel level to cause one to complain - or you know will soon go away -like a recent experience of building work on a neighbouring house running into weeks - it is something you gradually adjust to even without actually knowing it is happening. Only to be brought to the surface again when somebody asks how you put up with the noise?

 

Perhaps you should complain and ask for the manufacturer/installer to make some changes. My heat pump is mounted less than 20m away from the bedroom areas and and there is no penetrating humming noise that we hear when it is working over night even though we have bedroom windows open.

 

In the interest of science (well sort of) and as I only know of one source of Heat Pumps, which happens to be on the rear wall of our local Pharmacy - and where I park whilst my wife goes in to get our medications - I wound down the car windows to see if I could detect any humming noises. There were none that I could discern. So I alighted and walked towards the wall and heat pumps. At about 5 yards distance I could just make out the whirr of fan noise, but very subdued and no humming noise to speak of.

Now I do not know if heat pumps work in phases, or loads, so it is possible they a hum is created at some point but in the few minutes of my experiment I heard none.

So either it is the quality of the heat pumps -these were likely commercial models - or something to do with the way they are regulated. I shall listen again when we next need to visit the Pharmacy and see if anything has changed.

 

The heat pump seems to have been turned off again now, and there's still no sign of anyone moving in imminently, so perhaps it was just being tried out. I think it will be a case of monitoring it once it is up and running properly, but we ourselves will be moving fairly soon.

 

As with most things, it is a matter of balancing the pros and cons. Noise is perhaps more of an issue with heat pumps because they are sited outside, whereas central heating boilers tend to be inside people's houses, or at least in a garage or boiler house. Also, as I understand it, heat pumps are best left running overnight, when any noise they make is likely to be more noticeable, whereas we always turn our heating off overnight.

I'm all in favour of doing what I can to help the environment, but at the same time, I am quite sensitive to noise, and I need my beauty sleep!

 

There is another very important way to save money on gas bills by 6-8% but it appears to be relatively little known. It applies to condensing combi boilers that are the most common type in England now (54.8% of boilers in 2019). It does NOT apply to other boiler types.
To make these boilers as efficient as they should be the temperature of the water that flows to the radiators needs to be reduced from the factory setting. Radiators will be cooler but there is no impact on comfort.
I have heard this method of increasing efficiency mentioned on BBC Radio 4 more than once and seen in The Guardian but the best place to go for full information and advice is the heating hub. From the home page there are links to a .pdf flyer, a video and a blog on how to make the required change with examples of common boiler models.
I hope this may prove useful and is worth passing on to other boiler users.
It does not help me as our boiler uses wood pellets - we have no gas here.

 

This may depend on how your boiler operates. Some modern combi boilers work to target temperatures; that is, as the temperature in the building moves towards that set on the main thermostat, the boiler automatically reduces the flow temperature, so that by the time the thermostat reaches temperature and clicks off, the flow temperature (and thus the radiators) will be barely lukewarm.

 

Just to add to what I wrote above, there is an open Which article which covers this, and mentions 3 scenarios when reducing the flow temperature won’t save you money:
1. The flow temperature has already been reduced to the most efficient setting
2. Your home is not particularly well insulated
3. The outside temperature is particularly cold

Having had experience of a boiler which automatically adjusted the flow temperature I can endorse the latter two points.

 

Another energy saving tip is not to use the hot tap - or turn mixer taps to hot - when washing hands. Most sources agree that the most important thing from a hygiene point of view is to use soap, and it doesn’t matter whether the water is hot or cold.

Also, many people automatically turn on the hot tap for hand washing but have finished before the water has actually started running hot. So they are using energy to heat the water but then, unless someone else is using the water straight afterwards, that energy is just wasted.

 

What about hot water for washing-up (the dishes), or are you one who saves everything up for a weekly or bi-weekly machine dish wash? I can't believe that accords with your 'green' energy conservation principles. I arrange for the water to be heated for the first half hour of each day, longer on bath day (usually Sunday morning) when it is on for a couple of hours. We eat early evening - I cook, my wife washes-up - and complains if the water is not hot enough. To counter this I arrange a late afternoon boost for 15 minutes, which seems to do the trick.

We have a dish washer which gets used occasionally when I have a field day with excess use of pots, pans and dishes or when we have family over for a meal, otherwise it is hand wash as you go. Luckily I am not allowed to wash the dishes because I don't do it thoroughly enough; as if!