A UK plumber has revealed a genius hack to help people bring down the cost of their monthly gas bills.
Waseem Hussain took to TikTok to share two easy adjustments you can make to your boiler settings in order to keep your costs low, in a video that has racked up over two million views so far.
Waseem recommends making changes to your domestic hot water temperature and turning off another setting that people can sometimes unknowingly have on, WalesOnline reports.
READ MORE: Family devastated after passport rule forces them to cancel 'dream' holiday
His clip is specifically about Vaillant products, but the plumber says the same changes can be made to combi-boilers such as Worcester, Baxi, Ideal, Ferroli and other manufacturers.
First, Waseem says you should find the domestic hot water (DHW) setting on your boiler and turn it down as much as possible by pressing the minus key.
He advised viewers to set it at about 50 degrees, then run their bath tap and test the temperature.
“If that’s warm enough, leave it at that,” he said. “If it’s still too hot, keep going down. The lower you get this, the more gas you’re going to save.”
The plumber's second tip is to turn off ‘comfort mode’, a setting which allows water to pre-heat, meaning that hot water will come out of the tap on demand. This can be done by navigating back to the domestic hot water settings, and pressing the key on the right-hand side twice, which will take you to the comfort mode controls.
To toggle comfort mode on and off, users must press the plus sign and then press ‘OK’. Waseem said: “They are the two things I would advise you guys to do to save gas."
On his page, the TikToker, who has 27,300 followers(@plumbingdoctors) also demonstrates how to make these changes on other types of boilers. Waseem added: “It is not recommended to turn the temp down below 60 degrees Celsius on stored hot water systems but it's OK with combi boilers as they do not store water.”
With energy prices having increased by 54% in April, Waseem’s video has resonated with people trying to cut back on their bills. “Handy tip for saving gas," wrote one user.
“Thanks for this. I’ve turned my temp down a few months ago didn’t know about the comfort mode," another person added. Someone else wrote: “Doing it now."
Another viewer commented: “I’ve got this boiler! I’ll be doing this! Thank you for the tip, every little helps," another person wrote.
Some expressed concerns about Legionnaire’s disease, a lung infection that can be caused by boilers, air conditioning systems, taps, showers and hot tubs, for example. Legionella bacteria, which causes the illness, proliferate at between 20 and 45 degrees Celsius.
But Waseem claims that even if the water temperature is reduced, the risk of Legionnaire’s disease is extremely low in combi boilers, because they keep the water moving rather than storing it.
