Little Bit of Green

When considering whether you should buy a home, central heating installation is something you should take a closer look at. Especially with rising energy prices, you need to make sure it is installed properly and offering a cost-effective approach to your central heating.

Heating Issues

As you inspect potential homes, the central heating installation should be foremost in your mind. Basically, just remember that considering the feasibility of central heating installation is first and foremost the most important thing.

1. Layout – The layout of a home can have a major impact on both central heating and energy bills. While high ceilings are beautiful architectural aspects, they can be a huge heating issue. Heat rises, which means you are going to need more of it to warm a home with high ceilings. Always remember that high ceilings equate to high-energy bills.

Something else to consider with your potential new home is how many floors it has. With a home that has many levels, considering how you intend to heat all the floors is important, especially the lower ones. With homes that have 3 stories, they are called tri-level homes and are often subject to the zone effect. The rooms on the bottom of the tri-level are always cool, while the top floor may be close to a sauna. So, without a very modern and cost-effective approach to central heating, homes with 3 floors will find that energy bills go up considerably.

2. Control Areas – There is one popular way of reducing the need for central heating in homes with high ceilings, and that is to opt for a controllable heating system which will make life a lot easier. Something else to consider is a central heating system that you can control, so you wont lose as much heat in a home with high ceilings or multiple stories. In fact, there are many solutions for the modern home these days, and it may be that you can choose which rooms you want to heat with your system. These can be a godsend for larger homes where certain rooms are not used often. If the home you’re moving to hasn’t already had central heating installation, this is something you can consider.

3. Vents – A more mundane, but important issue, are vent locations. The vent layout in many homes is very badly considered, so you will need to look at this. For example, vents under the windows are a terrible placement. Also look for very large rooms with one or no vents, as these rooms will take a long time to heat up.

To be fair, any new homes you view should have central heating installed properly and the above points shouldn’t be an issue. Just be wary of older homes, as their high ceilings and generally larger rooms can make your central heating and energy bills rocket.

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