Central Heating On or Off?

[Deleted User]

Having just received a MASSIVE Gas Bill I am wondering whether or not I did the right thing!
Back in December I decided to re-program the CH so that it remained on - on the thermostat at about 20C - all day and then at 10:30pm switched off completely until 7:30am.
Should I have left it on 24/7 but reduced the thermostat during the night to 12C or something?

I feel I might be wasting GAs & Electricity reheating it up every morning.

Magentasue

Our comes on just before OH gets up - 20deg, down to 16 just before going to school time. Up to 18 for an hour when OH gets home. Off most of the day until home from school time. Up to 20 again at 7pm when baths start. Down to 16 (so off) at about 11.30pm.

Costs about £5 a day and it's always warm. We like it warmer than most but the heating is off more often than it's on weekdays.

Ken68

Hi Dave....set it for an hour or two in the morning and an hour or two in the evening.
Then adjust manually in between. No point in having the heat on when you not about, and if you heat the house all the time, what happens when you open an outside door !!!. And the house needs to be ventilated, no point in having the heating on then.

[Deleted User]

ours is on at 16 from 6 am to 4pm and then the wireless thermostat in the lounge is turned up to 18 and the door is shut. The ch soon goes off via the thermostat and anyway is timed to go off at 9pm. I get changed and cosied up, ready for bed before the en suite cools down. This works very well and we are warm all the time

Being home all day, if the weather is dark and bleak then I will turn the thermo up to 18 early and go up to the lounge with my laptop

Fire_Fox

Your boiler will be on full power for the first hour or so after you switch it on in the morning, depending upon how cold and large your house is. It's impossible for this to be more KWH of energy than the maximum output of your boiler, however. You then leave the heating on for fifteen hours a day, every day. So for 105 hours a week you boiler is not only maintaining 20C in your home, it's also trying really hard to heat the entire street.

mech_2

Makes no difference. 12 degrees C during the night is likely to cost the same as turning it off. 8 degrees is quite some temperature drop in 7 hours unless you have an enormously high level of heat loss.

housebug

Ours is also pre-set to come on for a couple of hours in the morning and again in the late afternoon. But the costs have gotten so silly, we've simply turned the thermostat right down. I don't think we've had the CH on more than half a dozen times since October. We use the gas fire in the front room on cold days and just make do. Thank goodness it hasn't been too cold so far this year and we' almost thru the worst of Winter. Plus there's no children or elderly in our household who may be more vulnerable to the cold. And its a flat rather than a house.

Having said that, I'm dreading our next gas bill. I was looking over the bills and wondered why we'd not had one since November. Then EDF have sent us a letter saying their switching meter reading services so thats why we've not had a bill since November. I think they'll be getting the next payment in installments! Like layaway.

onetomany

i put mine on about 20, but everytime hubby walks buy he turns of if i get my way it will be on high for a long time if not he can sleep with the dog(only joking)