Save on HVAC costs with smart thermostats and more efficient equipment

Contents

1. Make a plan to improve your HVAC
2. Change your behaviour
3. Change your HVAC configuration
4. Upgrade your HVAC equipment
5. Get finance and support

Make a plan to improve your HVAC

Your building’s HVAC system is an important part of making plans to retrofit your premises because they:

• typically use a lot of energy
• can be costly to replace
• affect comfort and productivity

You should improve your building fabric before upgrading your HVAC if you have an older building with poor insulation.

Figure out when changes are required

Keep an eye on policy changes that could affect your plans:

Fossil fuel heating phase out

Grants of £7,500 for a heat pump, or, in limited circumstances, £5,000 for a biomass boiler, are available under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme for property owners replacing a fossil fuel heating system in England and Wales.

Find out more about lining up a retrofit.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) 

In England and Wales, your building may require an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating that meets minimum standards.

As of April 2023, all non-domestic privately rented buildings in England and Wales must be EPC E, or the highest rating under EPC E that installing all cost-effective measures can achieve. 

Find building energy efficiency standards in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Both have EPC requirements with similar rating schemes.

Ask building occupants about their level of comfort and remind them what controls they can use.

Ask your landlord about their retrofit plans and what control you have to change HVAC controls and equipment if you rent your premises.

Submeter your HVAC system

Think about submetering the electricity or gas lines that power your HVAC system to get an accurate measurement of energy consumption.

Use the energy consumption measure to identify HVAC costs and potential savings.

Submeters should be installed by professional technicians. Depending on your HVAC system a basic electricity submeter costs from £20.

Change your behaviour

How you use your HVAC system can affect costs significantly.

Use the following low or no-cost measures to start improving performance without sacrificing comfort.

Set your heat lower

According to a GOV.UK energy saving guide you can reduce your monthly heating bill up to 8% for every 1°C you reduce the average temperature.

Set your thermostats, where you can, to:

• 19 to 21°C where people are not active
• 16 to 19°C where people are doing physical work 
• 16°C in any room when nobody is on site

Use the lowest comfortable temperature for people if you have a single thermostat for your premises.

The Health and Safety Executive suggests the minimum workplace temperature should be 16°C.

Check specific temperature ranges for your business type and activity in Carbon Trust’s Heating and Ventilation guide.

Avoid overcooling in offices

Air conditioning (AC) can greatly increase your energy bill.

To avoid overcooling, set your AC to the highest comfortable temperature for the hours people are at work.

Ensure AC is turned off in meeting rooms when people leave.

You should set AC in IT server rooms as recommended by the manufacturer.

Regularly check and maintain any AC units you have and ensure air filters are free from dust. Even a small reduction in airflow will increase running costs.

Create a temperature ‘dead band’

Make sure heating and air conditioning systems are not in use at the same time.

Set your thermostat to create a gap, called a ‘dead band’, between one switching off and the other coming on.

For example, you could set your heating to shut off at 20°C and cooling to come on at 24°C.

Do operations and maintenance checks

Keeping your systems in good working order keeps running costs down and reduces the risk of unscheduled down time.

You can do certain tasks, such as cleaning ducts or replacing filters. Call a technician for tune ups, calibration and programming.

Check the Energy Star website for more detailed advice on operation and maintenance.

Change your HVAC configuration

Simple changes to your existing HVAC setup can increase efficiency and potentially avoid costlier upgrades.

Align your HVAC system with occupancy schedules

Checking the HVAC programmer to ensure the heating/air conditioning operates only during building occupancy is a highly cost-effective energy-saving measure. 

Regularly ensuring that heating aligns with occupancy schedules can significantly reduce energy use in schools and offices.

Programmers often reset to default after a power cut or your HVAC system may not be updated when occupancy patterns change, resulting in unnecessary heating or cooling

Get a smart thermostat

Smart thermostats can help by:

• controlling your heating and cooling systems through a digital display or app on your phone
• giving you more flexibility to control and schedule temperatures

Businesses with smart meters can use half-hourly energy usage data to identify periods of unnecessary energy consumption, provided the data is available in a user-friendly format.

You can programme a schedule manually or set it to learn when you’re present and adjust automatically.

Many smart thermostats have energy saving modes to set temperatures to a comfortable limit.

Move thermostats

Relocate thermostats to areas that aren’t affected by local heating or cooling from radiators, draughts or direct sunlight. 

Install them on interior walls away from heat and cooling sources instead.

Switch to a wireless control system to avoid the expense of running wires if your current thermostats are hardwired.

Simple thermostat and receiver bundles cost less than £100 and can be installed yourself. Larger premises with complicated systems will cost more and require professional installation.

Install better controls

If your HVAC system allows for central control over different components and areas, make sure they are working together properly.

This includes:

• creating ‘zones’ with different HVAC settings per area
• timing HVAC operation to anticipated building demand
• boilers and circulating pumps shutting off at the same time
• timing the operation of extraction fans

Check the Carbon Trust’s Heating and Ventilation guide for more guidance.

Improve radiator efficiency

For radiators on outside walls, put radiator panels or aluminium foil behind them to reduce the amount of heat escaping. 

Dust the insides, regularly bleed them and move furniture away to ensure heat can circulate.

A thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) is a device used in heating systems to control the temperature of individual radiators in a building. TRVs can quickly reduce the heat sent to areas that are already warm. 

Check your boiler thermostat

A recent study by Nesta found lowering the boiler flow temperature from 80°C to 60°C on a condensing combi boiler can save 9% in gas.

Programme your boiler and heating to come on only when you need it.  

Check that your boiler stops firing when the thermostat or timer shuts off the circulating pump. Boilers that continue to fire when the pump is off are wasting your money.

Upgrade your HVAC equipment

Repairing or replacing your system is crucial if the programmer or thermostat is faulty.

You should replace components or the entire system if equipment is at the end of its lifespan or too costly to operate.

Take a ‘whole building’ approach and consider HVAC upgrades if you already need to upgrade building fabric.

When sourcing new equipment it is important to avoid ‘like for like’ replacement if more efficient systems are available.

Replace motors and drives

New motors and variable speed drives can have a major impact on HVAC efficiency if your system needs air and water supplied to equipment.

Find out more about how to optimise motor systems.

Get a heat pump

Decarbonising your building’s heating system is an important net zero priority as it uses significant amounts of fossil fuel.

Consider changing your boiler to a ground or air source heat pump for heating, cooling and hot water. Heat pumps run efficiently on the existing electrical grid.

Find help to get a new boiler.

Install overhead fans

You can reduce energy by installing overhead, or circulation, fans controlled by a thermostat.

Overhead fans save on heating by driving warm air back down to the workspace.

Ensure overhead fans have:

• have enough clearance from the ceiling and ground level to work well: premises with vaulted or double height ceilings are most suitable
• a speed and air movement rating that matches the size and use of your space

Install a building energy management system (BEMS)

Consider running any new HVAC equipment on an energy management system that monitors the performance of your entire building.

Energy management systems:

• are networked
• can be controlled in real time using computers or mobile phones
• allow settings to be changed quickly and easily
• can reduce total energy costs by 10% or more

Find out more about monitoring building performance.

Get finance and support

You could hire a consultant to redesign your HVAC system if your business needs help and has financial resources.

Find out about:

• what retrofit funding is available from banks, government schemes and local councils
• finance and support for your region
• what other SMEs that have successfully cut their costs and carbon emissions in case studies 

Relevant links:

Find out about:

• more actions you can take to retrofit your building and reduce carbon emissions in commercial building or home energy use
• how to reduce carbon emissions in transport, energy usage, your supply chain and more in browse by theme
• sector-specific information on how to reduce energy and save carbon in your business area