Top tips to reduce your heating bills

Energy used for heating and hot water accounts for more than half of a household's yearly energy bills.

Gas prices are currently high, but there are improvements you can make to your home heating system to make it more efficient and save money. 

Reducing your energy use is a win-win: not only will it save you money on your bill, but it will help reduce your carbon footprint at the same time.

If you've got a gas boiler, we've compiled our top tips for reducing your heating bills below. 

For advice on choosing an energy tariff and lowering your electricity bills, you can also head to our overall guide to saving on your household energy bills.

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1. Make sure your boiler is running efficiently

Ensure you understand everything your boiler offers. Familiarise yourself with the manual, which you should be able to find online if you don't have a paper copy. 

Your boiler's settings play a key role in the performance and efficiency of your heating system, but many homeowners aren't sure what to do with them.  

The best way to have your boiler set up as efficiently as possible going into winter is to book a service appointment. 

Find out more about boiler controls and how they can save you money.

2. Get your boiler serviced annually

Only 20% of boiler owners get an annual service, according to government figures. 

Ask your boiler engineer to confirm it's set up to maximise efficiency. Our guide to getting the best boiler service goes into more detail about this. 

As well as lowering your bills in the short term, an annual boiler service will also reduce your chances of emergency breakdowns that might incur a hefty repair bill.

Consider installing the Benchmark app for an easy way to access records of your boiler's service history and alerts when it's time to get your boiler serviced.

How to buy the best boiler: if you do need a new boiler now, read our expert advice on choosing the right one for your home.

3.Turn down the flow temperature of your combi boiler

If your radiators are very hot to touch all year round, you'll likely be heating water to a very high temperature uneccessarily.  

It could also mean that your condensing boiler doesn't condense, as the water needs to be cool enough on its return for condensation to form. 

The flow temperature is the temperature of the water that is sent to your radiators. If your boiler also provides hot water, this will have a separate temperature setting.

Many combi boilers are factory-set with a flow temperature of 75-80°C. But a flow temperature of 60°C is sufficient for most homes. It will allow your boiler to run more efficiently while helping it operate in condensing mode.

Research from insights agency Nesta has found that in winter 2026, typical households could save £57 by turning their combi boiler's flow temperature from 80°C to 60°C or below. 

Your home might take a little longer to heat up, as the radiators won't get as hot, but it should still reach the desired temperature on your thermostat. 

Head to our guide to lowering your flow temperature to find out how to change this simple setting.

4. Clean your radiator system

Keeping your system water (the water that circulates in your pipes and radiators) clean and free of sludge will make your heating system more efficient.

It’s also good for the ongoing life of your boiler and central heating. 

A clear sign that your system may be overly sludgy is if you have cold spots at the bottom of your radiators, or if some of your radiators take an age to heat up compared to others.

If you're getting a new boiler, a clean system is also essential to validate the manufacturer's warranty on your new boiler.

A heating engineer can flush out your radiators and pipes separately to a new boiler installation, and this can be a useful bit of maintenance to carry out. You can discuss it with your heating engineer at an annual boiler service.

Does your radiator system need a power flush?

Here are the different ways your system can be cleaned:

• Gravity flush: Draining the water in your radiator system and replacing it with new clean water.
• Power flush: A power flush will be more effective at removing sludge from your system, but it does require specialist equipment and can be expensive. 
• Chemical flush: A chemical flush is a lighter clean with a chemical that will help to ease the muck out more gently. A chemical flush doesn't require high-pressure equipment, so should be a bit cheaper than the full power flush treatment.

After any of these processes, a chemical inhibitor should be added to the system water to prevent further sludge build up.

If you ever add system water to top up the pressure of your boiler system, you may need to top up the inhibitor concentration to reach the correct level.

Products like magnetic filters can also be very effective at keeping your system water in a good state. They capture materials within a sealed system, which predominantly come from the radiators, and keep your system water clean.

Certain boiler manufacturers, like Worcester Bosch, offer a longer warranty on some of their boiler ranges if installed with a filter.

In areas with particularly hard water, a water softening filter is a sensible precaution to prevent limescale build up on critical boiler parts – such as the hot water heat exchanger.

5. Check your radiators are balanced

Balancing a heating system means optimising the distribution of water through the radiators. This increases its operating efficiency and comfort and reduces your energy usage.

To supply the correct heat output, each radiator needs a certain flow of water. If this is unbalanced, some radiators can take most of the hot water flow from the boiler, leaving other radiators with not enough. That in turn impacts the efficiency of your boiler and how comfortable your home feels, as some rooms will overheat and others will stay cold. 

In addition, thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) with too much flow might not work properly and you might hear loud sounds of water streaming as they start to close when the room temperature increases. 

If your radiators are removed for decorating and then refitted, you should watch out for the system potentially becoming unbalancing afterwards.

If you are having a new boiler installed, your system will need to be re-balanced. After the installation, ask your heating engineer for proof that your system has been balanced before paying for the installation.

Again, you can ask about radiator balancing at an annual boiler service.

Check your radiators and find out what to ask your heating engineer in our guide on how to balance your radiators.

6. Get the most from your room thermostat

The hotter you have your home, the more money you'll spend heating it. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that turning down your main thermostat by just one degree could save about 10% on your energy bill. 

That said, make sure your home is warm enough in cold weather to ensure you're not jeopardising your health. 18-21°C is the ideal temperature range.

Your thermostat measures the air temperature around it and tells your boiler to turn the central on or off to keep your home at a comfortable level. Turning it to 19°C from 20°C can save a typical household £67 a year, according to Nesta. 

Best smart thermostats – discover the models that came out top in our lab tests.

7. Lower thermostatic radiator valves

If you have TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) or smart radiator valves, it pays to spend a bit of time experimenting and getting them set up correctly.

These valves allow you to control the temperature of each radiator individually while the heating is on. They work by adjusting the flow of hot water from your boiler into the radiator, depending on the surrounding air temperature. 

According to Nesta research, changing settings on radiators outside your most used spaces from 5 to 3 can save typical gas-heated households £41 a year. 

With smart valves, you can even have the radiators change their settings on their own schedules. For example, you might have bedrooms set low during the day, and then come on before you go to bed. 

Remember that you should always have the valves open fully on the radiators in the same room as your thermostat. This stops the boiler receiving conflicting messages. 

Turning a TRV to a higher setting will not make the room heat up any faster – that depends on the boiler size and setting, and the radiator size. All it will do is keep heating the room until the air temperature reaches the level designated by the TRV.

Ensure each radiator in your home is able to circulate heat properly. For example, make sure they're not blocked by furniture or covered by curtains.

8. Insulate your home

Heat moves from warmer areas to colder ones. That means that in winter, the heat you generate will flow out from any heated living spaces to adjacent cold places - whether that's a loft, garage, cellar or the outdoors. Heat can also be lost through interior ceilings, walls, and floors – wherever there is a difference in temperature.

Your heating system works hard to replace this lost heat, while you pay more to heat your home, and burn more fossil fuels in the process. 

Insulating your home will decrease this heat loss. Not only will this lower your energy bills and cut your carbon emissions, it could also help you get a higher EPC for your home, making it more attractive to future buyers should you want to sell. A 2023 study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 80% of dwellings built before 1930 in England and in Wales had an EPC rating of D to G. 

Find out how energy efficient your home is and get started in our guide to how to insulate your home.

9. Try our free home energy planning service

Our personalised home energy planning service can help you figure out where to get started with your home's energy efficiency, how much it might cost for you and how energy updates will affect your future bills. 

Get a free home energy plan today

Use our home energy planning service, powered by Snugg, to get personalised advice for a more energy-efficient home and lower bills

Start your plan