Switch heating off during the day?

Pssst

Sheer folly.

Whilst that boiler is firing,the meter is turning. Only use your heating when and if you have to. Wear sensible clothing and thermal baselayers. I'm about to go off to work and i will be wearing thermal vest and longjohns,a wooly hat and a scarf.It is Winterville now.

windswept

I've been keeping an eye on my gas consumption since Sunday night and have used 4.5 units in 60 hours - by my calculations that's roughly 120 kwh / £6.50 ish at 5p per kwh.
That's ch on from 07.30 - 09.00, then 12.00 - 1.30, then 3.30 - 5pm, plus a couple of odd hours here and there, so maybe 6 - 7 hours in total. I have an extra hour button that my daughter is fond of using.
My room temp was 19.5 at 9am and dropped to 15.5 at 12.00 when the outside temp was zero. It's positively tropical now at 2 degrees outside so the heating will only stay on for anouther 20 minutes or so.
I haven't got room or radiator thermostats, there is a boiler and a hot water tank with 7 radiators in a 3 bed semi with cavity wall insulation.
It's set to be +5 degrees by the weekend - bikini time!

XDA

KimYeovil wrote: »

Why do you have the heating on for one hour in the morning? That will almost double your heating bills (exaggeration). See if you can deal with running in to the shower in the morning and using the warmth of the steam to dress by.

Its only on for an hour in the morning, as we up and out the house within an hour.

I'd be happy to shower without the heating on, but my brother moans about how cold it is so the heatings on to keep him quiet! :mad::rotfl:

LittleMissAspie

KimYeovil wrote: »

Why do you have the heating on for one hour in the morning? That will almost double your heating bills (exaggeration). See if you can deal with running in to the shower in the morning and using the warmth of the steam to dress by.

You must be joking. A cold house in the morning is AWFUL. If I'm cutting down on heating I'll have it off in the evening when I can dress warmly and sit in a blanket, not in the morning when I have to take all my clothes off to have a shower!

I have it on 1.5 hours in the morning and maybe 1.5 hours in the evening, but only if it's really cold like it has been recently. The living room doesn't have a radiator anyway so we have the fire on in there instead. 3 hours of fire costs us about 30p, 1.5 hours of heating is 50p.

What annoys me though is that we can't have the heating on for less than 1.5 hours, as the little markers on the heating control won't go any closer to each other.

Totality

I've been trialling different ways. Morning and evening (cheapest unless its off all the time!). All day (comfortable but costly). But I've now started having it on slightly later on a night, slightly earlier in the morning, and also for an hour around early afternoon with the thinking being that because the house is getting 3 decent blasts a day, it takes less time to get up to temperate...if that makes sense.

The extra blast during the day doesn't appear to be adding too much to the cost for us. I guess its trial and error in every household.

KimYeovil

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

You must be joking. A cold house in the morning is AWFUL. If I'm cutting down on heating I'll have it off in the evening when I can dress warmly and sit in a blanket, not in the morning when I have to take all my clothes off to have a shower!

I have it on 1.5 hours in the morning and maybe 1.5 hours in the evening, but only if it's really cold like it has been recently. The living room doesn't have a radiator anyway so we have the fire on in there instead. 3 hours of fire costs us about 30p, 1.5 hours of heating is 50p.

What annoys me though is that we can't have the heating on for less than 1.5 hours, as the little markers on the heating control won't go any closer to each other.

You have cold showers?? I prefer hot ones. This heats up my bathroom adequately (it also uncreases the washing).

"little markers on the heating control won't go any closer" This is a joke, mm? You wrote 'we'. Isn't there someone you can boot out of bed to switch the heating on? (Try sticking one foot outside the covers for five minutes then placing it against the middle of his back.)

How other people live. Horse for courses. Etc.