Heating your home should be one of your top priorities, especially at this time of year when temperatures are at their lowest.
There are many different ways to heat your home and as each has its own advantages and disadvantages, it can be very difficult to know if you are making the right choice when it comes to investing in a heating system.
In this article, we will talk you through three of the most popular options for home heating systems in the hope of assisting you in making that difficult decision a little bit easier!
This is, by far, one of the most popular ways to heat your home. In Irish households, boilers are either oil-fired or gas-fired and, to put it simply, they work by heating water in a water tank that, in turn, heats the radiators.
The temperature of your radiators is controlled by means of a thermostat, which can allow you to control the internal temperature of your home at a level that suits you. Boilers can also control underground heating.
When water in the tank is heated to an appropriate level, it sends heated water and steam through underground heating pipes which heats your interior from the floor up.
For those of you who are interested in sustainable ways to heat your home, an option that is worth exploring is that of wood pellet and biomass fuelled heating systems. These systems offer all the warmth and comfort that oil and gas fired heating would afford you but they burn cleanly and are a lot friendlier to the environment.
While wood pellet boilers are a more common sight in many homes, biomass boilers can also be installed which burn fuels such as wood chip or grain and their popularity is on the rise.
These types of boilers can significantly reduce your overall heating bill as the fuel used is much cheaper than gas or oil as well as being a more sustainable source of heating energy.
Solar central heating is a type of renewable heating that uses solar panels on the roof of your home to capture the sun’s rays and convert this energy into heating.
A popular misconception is that Ireland doesn’t experience enough sun to run solar central heating but that is just not true. Even on dull, cold and cloudy days, enough sunlight can be captured to heat your home and your water supply to a sufficiently hot temperature.
This type of heating is clearly an option for you if you are concerned with your carbon footprint as it’s environmentally friendly. And, even though it will require an investment up front, you will reap the benefits of solar power for years and years after installation.
Your choice of heating will have an impact on the comfort of your home as well as your overall heating bill so it is important that you select an option that ticks all your boxes. Determine what’s most important to you and you’ll soon realise which option out of the three is best.