With a little planning installing smart heating control systems can be a great idea

Over the last eighteen months, the use of smart heating systems has become more and more popular as people get used the the idea of controlling their heating system from their smart device. This also means there is increasing demand for new innovation and technologies in this area and manufacturers are responding by making their smart heating products ever more sophisticated. Whether it be a new build or an existing home, one of the biggest issues on the agenda right now is improving energy efficiency in order to reduce the carbon footprint and to achieve lower heating bills. Whilst this is easy to achieve with new builds, and also is not too difficult with retro-fitting in older buildings, a clear design plan to ensure the heating control system works correctly and efficiently is needed to ensure maximum benefit to the homeowner and the environment. A good analogy is to compare a heating system with the way we light up our homes. If darkness descended and we decided to put on the lights in our kitchen, we would consider it absolutely crazy to be forced to press one switch that puts on all of the lights in the whole house. We would instantly understand that lighting the whole house when we only need one room to be lit up is a waste of energy, harmful to the environment and very expensive way of lighting our home. However, much fewer of us think about the repercussions of having one switch to put the heating on and the huge amount of energy this type of system needlessly wastes. There is much work to be done to get people thinking about their heating system in the same way they think about their lighting system. The ideal results of setting up a well thought out smart heating control system is the ability to switch the heating on and off in different zones of your home at different times and in line with yours and your families’ lifestyles. The best way of achieving this is to break your smart control system down into four steps - zones, times, temperature and interlock. When thinking about what zones to set up, the lifestyle of your family needs to be considered. Maybe some unused bedrooms don’t need to be heated very often, maybe you work from home or are retired and need the heating on in certain areas for longer periods than people who are out at work all day. Thinking about how you live your life and where in your home you spend most of your time can be a great way in establishing the necessary zones. Once you’ve established what your zones are, you will then have to think about when these zones will be heated and at what temperatures. You will know who uses which rooms and when and whether they have any particular temperature preferences. A smart heating control system allows you to make this kind of customisation so you know exactly where your energy is being used and at what times. It also enables you to tinker with the settings as necessary so you can find the sweet spot between energy efficiency and maximum comfort. The power that smart heating controls give the homeowner is astounding and are set to become more and more common in homes across the UK. As highlighted above, it is recommended that careful planning is given before installing a smart control system to ensure you get the most out of it. After all, smart heating controls in and of themselves will not make a difference to the environment or your bills, but the way you use those controls most definitely will. It is also of great importance that the smart heating system is very user-friendly, as it’s not use have a very sophisticated system installed that has the ability to control the boiler, underfloor heating and individual radiators if you or other members of your family don’t know how to operate them and get the most out of the features they offer. So, if you are planning on installing a smart system, make sure you know why you want it, how you will use it and make sure you get one that is easy to operate. Bearing all this in mind, then there is no reason why you can’t have a state-of-the-art smart heating control system that works to provide heat when, where and at what temperature you want it. Article by Benjamin Clarke