How best to use a condensing boiler

gerad_way

Just wondered if anyone could offer advice about the most efficient way to use my boiler.
It is a condensing boiler about 3 years old.
We where told when It was installed that the whole idea of this boiler was to keep the house at a constant temperature all day/night.It would only come on when the house dropped below a certain temperature thus making it more economical to run.
I can understand this but with the house empty all day would it not be more cost effective to have it coming on at certain times i.e first thing in the morning, and when everyone arrives home??

Anyone have any thoughts on this:j

mech_2

I have estimated it costs me about 10% more per year to have the heating on around the clock during the winter compared to 2 hours in the morning and 6 hours in the evening on a timer. This was with the same room-thermostat setting in each case. I'm not convinced the comfort level is the same in both cases (it was struggling to reheat the house when the weather was cold), but 10% of a £700 gas bill would be a £70 saving.

This is only a very rough estimate. It's very hard to measure the effects on something that varies from day to day by so much. After months of changing my mind and reassessing the figures on multiple occasions, I settled on the 10% figure. It will also depend how well your house is insulated, what proportion of your heating bill is for hot water etc.

[Edit]: I forgot to mention that my boiler is a condensing combi (for relevance to the original question).

space_rider

Before prices started to go up I would leave mine on all the time and just set the room thermostat. Last winter I used the timer. Hard to work out what was cheaper as I think last winter was colder than the previous one. This is an almost 3 year old semi.