Understandably, people increasingly want to be comfortable in their own homes. The average temperatures inside our homes are estimated by BRE to have increased from 15.5ºC in 1991 to 19ºC in 2002.

This rise in temperature has been helped by the increased use of central heating and improved insulation. However, research from BERR showed that turning your room thermostat down by just 1ºC can reduce your heating bills by 10%.

Experts consider that a comfortable living room temperature is 21ºC, but in other parts of the house it is 2ºC lower. This suggests that being able to control the temperature in different rooms not only makes the home more comfortable but also saves a considerable amount of money (cue promotion for using an etrv. To get the full benefit of these products we must remember to close the internal doors to avoid hot bedrooms and cool living rooms.

The “comfortable” temperature that we set our thermostat at is affected by many different factors, such as social grade, type of dwelling, tenure and number of persons in the household. For example, Government statistics from Defra, suggest that people living in flats reported setting their thermostats as high as 28ºC, which is 8ºC higher than the reported thermostat setting for people living in detached houses! Yet, in general flats are more energy efficient than houses!

Posted by: Kevin Miller