Radiators can become a very important part of the bill each month. Therefore, making mistakes can make us pay much more. In this article we are going to talk about a mistake that many of us make. We are going to explain why you should avoid it and how it affects consumption month by month. You will see that some small changes that you make in your day to day when using radiators can help you save.
never cover the radiators
In your home, you may have heating and radiators in various parts of the house. That means that, unless you have some turned off, when you turn it on all of them will heat up. That may seem useful for drying clothes, for example. It is something tempting and that many people do. We wash clothes, we don’t want to use a dryer or put them outside because it’s raining and what we do is bring them closer to a radiator or even put them on top.
But that is a mistake. With that, what we are doing is that this radiator has to consume many more resources to maintain the temperature. For one, we’re putting something wet right next to it. But also, it will be obstructing the passage of hot air and it will not work as it should.
Therefore, never do this with your radiators. Although it may seem like a good option to dry clothes faster, the truth is that you will be spending more electricity or gas. It is not a good idea if you want to save as much as possible on heating this winter and make better use of available resources without wasting them.
But also, the fact of covering the radiators can also be very negative at the level of operation. You may have problems in the future. For this reason, you should never place anything on top of the radiators, be it wet clothing or anything else that could prevent the air from circulating normally.
We can apply the latter, for example, when putting a sofa right in front of the radiator. Although it is not directly obstructing the air outlet, it is going to reduce the temperature. What the heat basically does is crash against that sofa, which will absorb the temperature and we will be wasting energy.
Basic tips to save with radiators
So, what can we do to save with radiators beyond not putting wet clothes on or covering them? We are going to give some essential tips that you can put into practice this winter and thus try to lower the bill as much as possible. The objective is to maintain a good temperature, but spend as little as possible.
Put these tips into practice whenever you can and you’ll notice it on your bill every month:
- Improves the insulation of the house, such as windows
- Use a smart thermostat to better manage the temperature
- Schedule power on and off
- Turn off radiators you don’t need
- Maintain a temperature that does not exceed 21 degrees
In short, as you can see, covering the radiators and putting wet clothes to dry in front of them is a bad idea. Do not do it, since you can spend more on the bill each month but you could also put the proper functioning at risk.
