how many hours a day is your heating on?

before_hollywood

just trying to work out how best to set my boiler timer up

its a modern condenser boiler i think

how many hours a day is your heating on?

Cazza

I work full time. In the depths of winter, I'd probably have it set to come on half an hour before I get up and go off half an hour before I go to work, so 1 or 1.5 hours in the morning. In the evening, I'd probably have it set to come on as I get home, so maybe 6ish, then go off about 9:30, about an hour before I go to bed.

I do live on the South Coast though, and I'm sitting here with the window open and no heating on now!

littleredhen

mine comes on 1/2 an hour before we get up and is on for just 1/2 an hour after and in the evening goes on about 7ish again for an hour - once heating goes off i put on a fleece and always make sure the curtains are shut - i have only just put it on this week and i like to sleep with the window open in all the bedrooms - i live in Scotland

Swipe

I don't put it on in the morning as I just sit around in a fleece drinking tea for 20min then go to work. I have air source heat pumps so just put them on when I return home and the sitting room is warm within 10 minutes and the rest of the house within about 30 min.

Mazio_2

My findings over a year is my gch in my house uses more gas in the first 1hour or so then it does over the next few hours .
I think its becauce it has to heat the water up to temp then pump it through the rads until the room stat kicks in then if you have good insulation it only uses a small amount to keep it to temp for serveral hours so.

The longer I use it the more fuel I use but its far less keeping it on once upto temp then switching it on and off for a few hours at a time.

If that makes sense so my hours are 1/2 hour before we get up and left on for about 3 hours in the morning ( until 1/2 hour before we all leave) then about 7 hours on in the evening in the mid winter.

I have tried it for shorter and longer periods but its very small difference in gas usage.
And yes we do like a comfortable heat setting in the house and we also have kids so bedroom rads are on to.

But every house is different and you will need to run some checks in your prop and keep readings to compare and remember it also depends on the outside temp to how long heat is retained inside and the house gets upto temp..

mouseymousey99

Haven't got the heating on yet! But do have the hot water thingie on for a couple of hours am and then from about 4pm for a couple of hours (sometimes use the boost button if I want a bath).

lemontart

zero - cannot afford to have it on - called put extra jumper on or early nite with hot water bottle - have tv in bedroom so can happily doze off in front of tv.

Hazzanet

Not cold enough for the heating to be on yet

oldskoo1

Last year we had ours on 24hours a day

2 years ago our winter was like described, an hour or so in the morning and about 4 or 5 hours in the evening.


Ignore cost because unit prices change i looked at usage and there was hardly ANY difference. The usage was slightly higher in black and white (as you would expect) but the increase was so small you wouldn't hardly notice it. Like an extra few quid each month.

The house was also much nicer to live in. 2 years ago on timed it was always cold in the mornings and when getting home from work. Same can be said for the weekend. Compared to having it on all the time, which is warm 24/7.

Our excuse was we just had a baby and there was no way we wanted it to be too cold at night and in the day.

As it worked out our winter bill from nov - feb was like £220 for gas and elec.


I even looked at the avg. temps from the met office and it was colder this last winter compared to the winter 2 years ago which would account for some of the usage increase.

So in my experience the black and white usage figures show it is easily worth it to have it on 24/7.

Mazio_2

I agree with oldskoo1 my findings are similar but I still think its dependant on several factors:-

1) How good insulation is
2) How old is the heating system
3) What type of prop
4) What type of control system

Every prop will be different so you need to check your own situation and take readings to compare.

ixwood

lol at leaving it on 24/7. If I did that it'd cost a fortune. I think you'd need very good insulation for it not to cost a lot.