According to the UK's Energy Saving Trust, in a typical household over half our energy bills are spent on heating our homes and hot water. With prices of energy constantly rising and in the wake of Brexit set to rise by a far greater amount than we are used to it is normal to assume that many people are looking for a way to reduce their energy usage and thereby the energy costs.
When you accompany this with the UK's ambitious yet necessary Carbon targets that require each house to significantly reduce their person carbon footprint we quickly begin to realise there are some drastic changes likely to happen.
As we sit here facing the colder month of an increasingly difficult 2020 for many people we can tell you that these changes are in fact already here and these price rises are already scheduled to come into play as soon as this festive period.
Here are some of the numbers for you:
This graph (courtesy of the Energy Saving Trust website) gives a harsh reality to the average households annual CO2 emissions in 2017. What surprised everyone within our organisation when doing this research is how much energy we are using to complete what is considered by most of us as a day to day "under the radar" type of task; heating our homes. When you couple this with the knowledge that we do not heat our homes all year round, it really highlights to an alarming degree that we need to make some serious changes.
The numbers clearly show that we as an average household are responsible for more CO2 emissions through our heating than we do from our transport and waste, a fact not known by the majority of the general public, and one not in the focus of any media government focus groups.
This graph shows the United Kingdoms Carbon emissions target for 2050. As you can see the government strongly believe that they can reduce transport emissions to zero through the use of renewable sources over traditional combustion engines. Yet even with renewable options available to heating, they believe it will still not be 100% achievable.
Of course there are a number of reasons why this figure may not be able to reach zero that a simple graph will not illuminate, however, with renewable sources like ground source heat pumps, electric boilers and thermo-fluid radiators such as the Ascot radiators, there are enough immediate solutions to begin tackling this soon to be overwhelming problem.
This graph from Citu shows the typical heating requirements for the average detached 3 and 4 bed house. As you can see these requirements a huge. Whilst a lot of improvement to ventilation and insulation has been introduced through regulation update and better quality materials, it's still not enough. Citu place sustainable living as their key feature for all of their developments and have stated that their mission is to accelerate the zero carbon targets set. They have have a white paper on their website relating to hydrogen options as an alternative to natural gas.
With so many options available to the house builders market, should more be done about forcing the issue? We also believe that for the retro-fit market that want to replace a dated gas boiler or storage heater, that more work around awareness of alternatives such as the Ascot fluids needs to be done as a matter of urgency to help turn the tide of climate change.
Can This approach save you money on your heating?
The short answer to this is YES! Whilst we can only advise of information accurate to Ascot electric heating products, most renewable energy alternatives will work out cheaper in the long run of the installation.
With Ascot heating there are several cost advantages, no boiler means no servicing cost each year. Programming and individual thermostats means accurate energy consumption is sent to the rooms that need it and not across the entire house, reducing waste and carbon emissions. Electric heating is also 100% energy efficient, meaning every watt used is converted to heat with zero loss or waste of energy.
When you combine the above with the award winning Ascot technology, you also have a huge consumption deficit which can be explained when looking at the image here.
This graph illustrates the average consumption level of a 1000W Ascot Wi-Wi Electric heater placed in the living room of a new build development.
The blue line indicating the temperature of the room while the orange shows the energy consumption required to achieve the desired level of heat.
With a total capacity of 1000W you can see that whilst maintaining a heating level between 22 and 25 degrees the heater doesn't even require the use of 50% of its energy capacity. In fact the average consumption of the heater is 33.4%.
The reason for this is, our heaters are designed to work with the thermostat to ensure that the heating level is sustained through a constant adjustment of consumption. By working like this it can maintain the desired room temperature without large consumption spikes and therefor reducing the amount of energy each heater uses. This will directly be reflected in the homes electricity bill as well as the carbon emissions of the property itself.
This graph is available for each heater with the Wi-Fi Ascot heaters, through the free app that supports the heating system.
Do you want to start reducing your carbon footprint and saving money on energy bills?
Let us help. We need very little information to get started. Simply contact us with room dimensions and we can start working on a free heating design for you to show you which heaters you will need for each room. Just click here to get in touch.
Thanks for taking the time to learn more about this growing issue. If you'd like to know more on this topic please contact us for further details and we would be happy to share our knowledge with you.