How should one maintain the temperature in the house??

southernscouser

Force yourself on other peoples hospitality then you won't have to put any heating on. Bet no-one can come up with something cheaper or more efficient than that.

tomstickland

Boilers vs kettles at work is because each individual kettle that's boiled contains more water than is needed, this then cools down. Hence a lot of wasted heat.
I bet that they're not left on over the christmas shut down.

poorbabe

Following on from Cardew's extract from the EST website, I found this from the Moneymagpie site:


Keeping your house warm

Turn your central heating down to just above 1º and leave it on 24/7. This keeps the temperature constant and can warm the house quite well, and you burn less gas than turning the heat on every night and then off again in the morning. If you want to have it on high when you get home, turning it down by just one degree centigrade (and putting an extra jumper on) can save you 6% a year on your heating bills.



So this is wrong? My heating is on a timer as I'm out at work during the week, but surely this wouldn't be beneficial for people of limited financial means, including pensioners?

1carminestocky

I've always found the 'what do you do when you go on holiday? You turn the heating off' argument a fairly poor one, tbh. OF COURSE having NO HEATING will save you money but when on holiday you don't need any heating on. This argument is not about the choice between having some heating on and no heating on but the correlation between having your heating on a low-ish setting 24/7 and having your heating timed to get it up to the accepted temperature and which one uses more fuel. I personally don't care about the laws of thermodynamics blah blah blah I'm sure a similar argument was trotted out by people arguing the World was flat (I mean, if it wasn't we would all fall off, wouldn't we?). All I' saying is NO-ONE on here has yet linked to a scientific study that proves which theory is correct..

Cardew

poorbabe wrote: »

Following on from Cardew's extract from the EST website, I found this from the Moneymagpie site:


Keeping your house warm

Turn your central heating down to just above 1º and leave it on 24/7. This keeps the temperature constant and can warm the house quite well, and you burn less gas than turning the heat on every night and then off again in the morning.

If you want to have it on high when you get home, turning it down by just one degree centigrade (and putting an extra jumper on) can save you 6% a year on your heating bills.



So this is wrong? My heating is on a timer as I'm out at work during the week, but surely this wouldn't be beneficial for people of limited financial means, including pensioners?

I thought you had copied this down incorrectly, so I went to the website and it obviously is a misprint.(it is hardly an authoritative publication)

There are some hardy souls on MSE but I think even they would baulk at 1º !!

The statement "you burn less gas than turning the heat on every night and then off again in the morning." is even more puzzling! Who turns heating on at night and off in the morning?

Frankly I don't know what they mean in the first part. The second part about 6% is correct.

The question often posed is about a constant low temperature on 24/7 or timed sessions to a higher temperature. e.g. "is it cheaper to have my heating at a constant 16C or have it timed to come on at 20C for xx hours a day"


That question simply cannot be answered by anyone; you can only find out by conducting a trial in the particular property.

However that is not the subject of this thread and there is absolutely no question that the EST quote is correct

tomstickland

1carminestocky wrote: »

I've always found the 'what do you do when you go on holiday? You turn the heating off' argument a fairly poor one, tbh. OF COURSE having NO HEATING will save you money but when on holiday you don't need any heating on.

When you're not in the house then you don't need any heating on.

BallandChain

Has anyone actually performed an experiment to see which way is the cheapest? Maybe MSE can come up with a control study group. One group keeping their heating on 24/7, the others keeping the heating on timed. Though, as I've read it this can cause variations due to insulation or lack of it, size of property and boiler efficiency.

1carminestocky

tomstickland wrote: »

When you're not in the house then you don't need any heating on.

Think about it.

mech_2

BallandChain wrote: »

Has anyone actually performed an experiment to see which way is the cheapest? Maybe MSE can come up with a control study group. One group keeping their heating on 24/7, the others keeping the heating on timed. Though, as I've read it this can cause variations due to insulation or lack of it, size of property and boiler efficiency.

Housing varies quite considerably. The only way to eliminate such variables entirely would be to measure the consumption using each method in the same house for a whole heating season. Ie: an experiment lasting 2 years in total. The room thermostat/TRVs should be kept strictly to the same value 100% of the time the test is running. Gas consumption should be plotted against degree-days to rule out differences in outdoor temperature year-on-year.

Do it with enough different houses and you can then build up a picture of what features of a building affect the comparison between heating methods.

There really isn't much of a chance of heating 24/7 actually burning less gas than when programmed to be off during the night/during working hours, as long as the thermostat setting is the same. The difference might be difficult to measure accurately, but it will be there. So on the assumption that it uses more, it's really more of a question of what gives a better trade-off of comfort versus cost.

And also it would be interesting to know if greater comfort levels with constantly-on heating leads to a greater potential for turning room thermostats down. That's the only way it could potentially be cheaper and more energy efficient.

BallandChain

The reason I mentioned that it might be cheaper leaving the heating on 24/7 (obviously just during the winter months) is because I was thinking of a car. Now if a car stop/starts, stop/starts it uses more petrol than if it was running at a steady speed of say 30 mph. I'm sure I read that petrol consumption is used more in heavy traffic as you start/stop. Given that analogy, I was applying it to the boiler. If it stop/starts you are in effect using up more energy than if you kept it running at a constant, even temperature. Of course the argument is that you wouldn't run a car engine while nobody is in it. This is true, just like you wouldn't leave a kettle on simmer (I remember Cardew bringing that up!) but during the winter I'm wondering if it is better to leave the heating on constantly rather than the stop/start approach.