Heating your home can be a tricky task and you might dread the cold winters that force you to ponder over how best, once again, to keep your home toasty. You might have invested in the latest double panel radiators, but you still may not be sure how long you should leave them on for. There are conflicting opinions on whether leaving your central heating on all the time is better or worse. So here are the pros and cons of both so you can make an informed decision on your heating.
Sometimes It’s Cheaper
You’ve probably seen a lot of articles explaining how it’s way more cost-effective to leave your heating on all the time. And sometimes, this can be the case. Keeping your central heating turned on at all times means that you have a steady warmth throughout your home that you can easily control. As your home won’t be getting as cold as it would if the heating was turned on and off, you won’t need to have the heating up so high. It can also take less energy to heat the rooms as you don’t need to warm the room up from a freezing temperature. This can be more beneficial if you work from home too or have a lot of people in your home at once. This way you can ensure that everywhere is equally heated and no one will suffer from an off-putting chill.
Sometimes It’s More Expensive
On the other hand, some people argue that it’s actually more expensive to leave your heating on all the time. The theory is that you’re continuously using energy which can build up to a large bill. Whereas, only using it when you need it could use less, therefore lowering your bill. It’s also possible that your boiler has to work harder to maintain the same level of warmth throughout the house too. Switching it on when you need it might take a little more energy to bring the room to temperature, but it might not be as much as leaving it on all the time.
Continuous Warmth
One major benefit of leaving your heating on 24/7, is that you’re never cold. There’s nothing worse than coming home to a cold house after work in the dead of winter, so keeping your heating on will eradicate this completely. It’s also useful if you have animals in the home who will be alone while you’re out of the house. Keeping them warm is a necessity, so even if you’re not home, think about who you’ve left behind.
Not So Eco-Friendly
As we learn more about climate change and the effects energy production has on the world, more people are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. It’s been argued that leaving your central heating on isn’t very eco-friendly. Depending on how much energy it uses, you could be doing more damage to the environment than good. It’s also not a good idea to leave it on if your home isn’t well insulated. Poor insulation will mean you end up using more energy than necessary and wasting it as it escapes from the gaps in your home. Every time you use your central heating, you are effectively causing more energy to be generated, so you want to ensure it’s actually worth it. Before you decide to leave your heating on all the time, make sure you check there are no gaps or bad insulation that will render your decision ineffective and increase your carbon footprint.
Prevent Damp
A huge problem that a lot of homeowners face is damp, and it can be an expensive nightmare to get rid of. Leaving your central heating on could be a solution to this issue as keeping your home warm prevents damp from occurring. However, it’s also important to keep your home well ventilated to stop damp from forming as water vapour within your house needs to escape. If you have damp in your home, you’ll know how difficult it is to manage and how much it can cost to fix. So, if you want to keep a room damp free, ensure that you keep it warm enough and ventilated.
Wasteful In Empty Rooms
Although you may want to keep your whole house warm, it can be quite wasteful to have the heating blasting in all the rooms, all the time. For example, if you’re working from home in your office, you’ll typically just need that room to be warm. But if you leave your central heating on all the time, you’ll be heating empty rooms that no one is currently in. If a lot of your rooms are left vacant during the day, leaving the heating on in them is only racking up your electricity bill without really giving you any benefits. You want your heating to be keeping you and your family warm when it’s needed, not when no one’s around.
There are many pros and cons of leaving your heating on all the time. You might find that keeping it on actually decreases your energy bill, but you could find it increases. It all depends on your usage and how you like your home to be heated. For example, if you don’t really feel the cold, then it’s pointless having your heating on all the time because you’ll end up just turning it down anyway. But, if you have little children or elderly people sharing your home, they could feel the cold a lot more and require the heating on more often. Spend some time figuring out which method will benefit you and your home the most, and you’ll soon forget all about how hard it used to be to heat your home.
