Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:38 pm Post subject: most efficient use of heating?
Is it better to:
1. have the heating on all day (and overnight?) on low even when we are out?
2. Just put the heating on when we are at home, even if it needs to be on higher?
We have just had a new efficient boiler installed, but do not have room thermostat, only radiator ones (although I'm not convinced they work properly) and a knob on the boiler to turn the heat up/down.
I always find we have to turn it up much higher when it's just on in the evening after work than if we have it on all day at the weekends.
I'm not sure Aqui, I think it depends on your system. Mine is rubbish and expensive to run so I just have the gas fire on at a peep in the sitting room. The heating will be put on maybe once a fortnight just to keep the damp off the upstairs rooms. We wear lots of clothes and I'll switch the oven on with the door open to heat the kitchen!
I think it all depends how well insulated your house is. Aqui, the radiator thermostats should work well, if they don't appear to be working efficiently then they probably need adjusting.
Well, in a perfect world (but not with a perfectly insulated house, that would negate the need for heating!), your needs with regard to the temperature of the house fluctuate: whilst sleeping, it is perfectly fine (and natural) for the temperature to drop a little, and whilst out, it doesn't matter either.
If you use a thermometer and make sure you're not overcompensating by heating the place to a higher temp using the second method, that should be most efficient. Bear in mind that even if the "power" is turned up, the modern boilers only provide as much energy to the water as is needed: they monitor the return water temperature, and adjust accordingly. What you are doing with that knob is (most probably) increasing the overall system temp, which will speed up the heating of the house from cold.
Ours goes up to 82°, which is enough to scald, so you wouldn't want it that hot unless all radiators were protected. Also, losses in the pipes will be higher, though as they are inside the house, that is not massively important! With children around, you would want to reduce this to something which they can't hurt themselves on, I suppose.
Also, boilers run most efficiently when on max.
Conversely, if you have only under floor heating, you can use one of these boilers with a low temp setting, as then you don't need to have a seperate mixer to cool the water.
To summarise, that setting on the boiler is not proportional to the gas used, so set it as high as you can. Using a program is definately worth it as there is no need for the house to be as hot whilst out or asleep.
One concern: you should have one room stat, because the heating will continue to run even if all radiators are up to temperature. This doesn't damage the pump like in an old system, but is still bad for energy efficiency, and generally not recomended!
Sorry for the essay _________________ *All* tiles now up in the bathroom! A bit of grouting to go and it'll be a finished room
with most older properties, the insulation values are not great, so it is in effect better to only heat when you need it, rather than all the time (as you would be losing heat all the time, too).
we have a timer setting, one hour in the morning for a warm bathroom, then evening heat which gets set as we need it (currently only one hour, from 8 to 9 or something like that) as the cold time progresses, more heating will be needed in the evening. our boiler is efficient and heats the house up quicly, so it's no point heating all day.
unfortunately, we dont have a thermostat - or rather, it hasnt worked since we moved in - which we wont be able to rectify until next spring. until then, when the sun suddenly breaks out, it does sometimes get rather too warm in the house.....!
in our last house we had central heating put in, it was oil and we had a thermostat in the downstairs hallway that we kept at 10 when we weren't there or when we were in bed and it never went above 15...that kept the fabric of the house warm and our oil bill was never extortionate, a thousand litres lasted us for a whole year
we also had a timer on the boiler that we could set so the water heated up once or twice a day unless we over rode the system........the water was also heated by oil so i think that we did well with that and never really got cold
the house we are in now has oil central heating but no thermostat and no timer and it irks me to hear the boiler kicking in so often despite the rads being on only mark one or two ( why should i give the arabs my money) so the electrician is coming to fit a thermostat for us on friday......unfortunately i forgot to ask for the timer so i will have to ring him tomorrow and ask for one of those as well........
i really think that keeping the house at a low warm temperature is better than trying to heat the whole fabric of the house in a couple of hours
I should've left the heating on overnight (on low) - it was so cold when I got up for my 4am pee that I then got really bad leg cramp!
I think while it's this cold, we'll leave in on very low overnight - it was freezing this morning too, even though heating had been on for an hour when we got up.
Heating was on all day yesterday (I was in) so it was warm in the evening. TOday I shall see how it compares - the heat would've been on for at least an hour again by the time I get home.
We do need to get the loft insulation done as it is too thin. But first T needs to empty out all the rubbish from up there.
I have a thermometer in the living room to keep that around 20C - I always turn the heat down when it gets hotter than 22 - I always feel it when it gets over that. The rest of the house is always slightly cooler as the living room has a double rad.
We need to finish our central heating, as upstairs is ok, but downstairs was 12° this morning, even though we've set it on permanently at the moment. We will be changing it to timed right as soon as we have enough radiators plumbed to heat the house properly!
Having a ceiling in the extension would help a lot, and some insulation too.
_________________ *All* tiles now up in the bathroom! A bit of grouting to go and it'll be a finished room
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