Practical ways to use less heating oil and keep a warm home. 2026-09-19T00:00:00Z https://tankful.io/tips/ Tankful 2026-09-19T00:00:00Z https://tankful.io/tips/the-cheap-draught-proofing-that-pays-for-itself-in-a-winter/

Cold air coming in means warm air going out. The fixes that make the biggest difference cost less than a tank of oil and take an afternoon.

<p>Older houses leak. Cold air comes in low, warm air escapes high, and the boiler makes up the difference. Draught-proofing is not glamorous, but it is the cheapest way to make a house feel warmer at the same thermostat setting.</p> <p>Work through these in order. Each one is a small job.</p> <h2>1. The letterbox and keyhole</h2> <p>A letterbox is a hole in your front door that stays open all winter. A brush-lined letterbox flap costs a few pounds and fits with two screws. While you are there, a keyhole cover on an old-style lock closes another small hole.</p> <h2>2. Gaps around external doors</h2> <p>Stand inside with the lights off on a bright day. If you can see daylight around the door, air is coming through. Self-adhesive foam or rubber strip along the frame closes the sides and top. A brush strip screwed to the bottom of the door closes the gap underneath.</p> <h2>3. The chimney</h2> <p>An open fireplace that is not in use pulls warm air out of the room and up the flue all day. A chimney balloon or a purpose-made chimney draught excluder blocks it. Take it out before you next light a fire, and label the fireplace so nobody forgets.</p> <h2>4. Floorboards and skirting</h2> <p>In rooms with suspended timber floors, cold air rises between the boards and along the skirting. Flexible filler in the gaps at the skirting, and a rug over the busiest part of the floor, both help more than they sound like they should.</p> <h2>5. Curtains that actually close</h2> <p>Thick, lined curtains, drawn at dusk, keep a surprising amount of heat in. Make sure they hang inside the windowsill or are tucked behind the radiator, otherwise they funnel the radiator's heat straight onto the cold glass.</p> <h2>What to leave alone</h2> <p>Do not seal trickle vents on windows, extractor fans, or the air bricks that ventilate under a timber floor. Those are there to stop damp and to give the boiler the air it needs. The aim is to close the gaps you did not choose, not to stop the house breathing.</p> 2026-09-15T00:00:00Z https://tankful.io/tips/is-your-boiler-running-hotter-than-it-needs-to/

Most oil boilers are set to heat water far hotter than the radiators need. Turning the flow temperature down can cut oil use without making the house any colder.

<p>There are two temperature settings in most oil-heated homes, and people tend to confuse them.</p> <p>The <strong>room thermostat</strong> decides when the heating comes on. The <strong>boiler flow temperature</strong> decides how hot the water is when it leaves the boiler for the radiators. That second dial is often left at the factory setting, which is usually somewhere around 75 to 80°C. For many houses that is hotter than the radiators need.</p> <h2>Why lower is cheaper</h2> <p>A lower flow temperature does two things. The boiler loses less heat through the pipework, and, if it is a condensing boiler, it spends more of its time in condensing mode, where it recovers heat from the flue gases that would otherwise go up the chimney. Most oil boilers fitted since 2007 are condensing models. The label on the front or the installation manual will tell you.</p> <p>The radiators run a little cooler, so the house takes slightly longer to warm up, but it reaches the same temperature. The thermostat still switches the heating off at the point you set.</p> <h2>What to try</h2> <ol> <li>Find the flow temperature dial on the boiler. It is usually marked with a radiator symbol or a range of numbers.</li> <li>Turn it down in small steps, say 5°C at a time, and live with each setting for a few days.</li> <li>If a room stops reaching the temperature you want on a cold day, go back up one step.</li> </ol> <p>Somewhere around 60 to 65°C works for a lot of homes with reasonable insulation. Older, draughtier houses may need more.</p> <h2>One thing to keep hot</h2> <p>If you have a <strong>hot water cylinder</strong>, its own thermostat should stay at 60°C or above. That is the temperature that stops legionella bacteria growing in stored water, and it is separate from the radiator setting. If your boiler uses a single dial for both heating and hot water, or you are not sure which is which, ask your heating engineer to set it up at the annual service rather than guessing.</p> 2026-09-10T00:00:00Z https://tankful.io/tips/bleed-your-radiators-before-the-cold-sets-in/

A radiator that is cold at the top is full of air, not water. Ten minutes with a bleed key gets the whole panel hot again and stops your boiler running longer than it needs to.

<p>Put your hand on each radiator when the heating has been on for half an hour. If the bottom is hot and the top is cool, there is air trapped inside. The boiler is heating water that never reaches the top of the panel, so the room takes longer to warm up and the boiler runs for longer to get there.</p> <p>Bleeding a radiator lets that air out. It takes a few minutes and costs nothing.</p> <h2>What you need</h2> <ul> <li>A radiator bleed key. Most hardware shops sell them for a pound or two, and some radiators have a screw slot that takes a flat screwdriver instead.</li> <li>An old cloth or a small jug to catch the drips.</li> </ul> <h2>How to do it</h2> <ol> <li><strong>Turn the heating off</strong> and give the radiators twenty minutes to cool. Bleeding a hot system can spray very hot water.</li> <li>Find the bleed valve. It is a small square nut inside a round fitting, usually at one top corner of the radiator.</li> <li>Hold the cloth under the valve and turn the key slowly anticlockwise, about a quarter turn. You will hear air hiss out.</li> <li>When water starts to dribble steadily instead of spitting, close the valve. Do not overtighten.</li> <li>Move on to the next radiator. Start with the ones on the ground floor and finish upstairs, because air collects at the highest points.</li> </ol> <h2>Check the pressure afterwards</h2> <p>If your boiler has a pressure gauge, look at it once you have finished. Letting air out lowers the pressure a little. Most systems should sit between 1 and 1.5 bar when cold. If it has dropped below 1, top it up using the filling loop under the boiler, or ask your heating engineer to show you how at the next service.</p> <h2>When to do it</h2> <p>Once a year in early autumn is enough for most homes. If you find yourself bleeding the same radiator every few weeks, air is getting into the system somewhere, and that is worth mentioning to your engineer.</p>