What Are Heating Controls?

In many of our blogs we mention heating controls in your home. But what are they, exactly? Complheat is here to help.
Heating controls are the fixtures in your home which allow you to easily regulate the temperature. The heating controls automatically turn heating on and off based on settings input by the homeowner to ensure maximum comfort. Heating controls have moved away from a fixed, old fashioned timer system and can therefore be used to control the temperature within your home more easily and to greater degrees of accuracy and comfort.
Modern heating controls also work by being automatically regulated to work around your daily schedule with an optimum start/finish time, allowing you to keep track of the temperature of your home so you can adjust it accordingly.
There are generally four products that make up a domestic heating control system, whether its gas, LPG or oil-fired. Traditionally, many homes only have one or two of these:
Room thermostat
These prevent your home from getting warmer than necessary. They turn the heating on until the room reaches the temperature you have set, and then off until the temperature drops.
The room thermostat’s job is to feed information back to the boiler and tell it to either fire up or cool down, therefore they require free flowing air so the sensor can always work out the temperature, so they must not be blocked by curtains or furniture, or put near heat sources.
This type of heating control is generally kept in the lounge as this is where homeowners generally spend most of their time.

Boiler programmers
Homeowners tend to like their houses being warm when they wake up in the morning or come home from work, and the boiler programme is the automated way of doing this.
There is no point in heating the home when no-one is there to get the benefit from the heat. A programmer allows you to set very specific time frames when the heating comes on from day to day.
These programmers allow you to set different heating patterns for each day, so if at the weekend more time is spent at home, you could use the programmer to reflect that.

Thermostatic Radiator Valves
Of course programmers and thermostats control when you want the heating to come on and the specific temperature you want it to be, but thermostatic radiator valves allow you to have additional control over your heating system.
The job of a thermostatic radiator valve is to track the temperature of the room in which the radiator is situation and turn it down, or off, depending on the temperature of the room. Thermostatic radiator valves make sure the temperature of each room is controlled individually.
These particular heating controls allow you to fine tune your system.

Hot water cylinder thermostat

If your hot water is stored in a cylinder, then these are a great way of ensuring the water temperature doesn’t get too hot. After all, storing water at a very high temperature increases your bills since you need to use more gas (or electricity if you use the immersion heater) to get the water to the higher temperature.
Cylinder thermostats are usually fitted to the cylinder and has a dial on the front where you can adjust the temperature. They are normally set between 60 and 650c which is hot enough to kill any bacteria but also scald you when it comes out of the tap.

What are the benefits of heating controls?
Heating controls allow you to accurately control the temperature of your home at all times, meaning you’re not wasting energy on empty rooms. You can schedule your heating and hot water to go on and off when needed. You’re likely to save money on your heating bills by installing and using your controls efficiently too.
You can select areas of your home to heat and the required temperature for each room, rather than heating a whole house at the same temperature. You’ll reduce your carbon dioxide emissions this way, and save energy in these other ways too (link to energy saving blog).
If you require assistance or advice about your home’s heating controls, contact Complheat and we will be happy to help.