Which is the most efficient? {advice pls}

Tammer

Hi,

I have a small 2 bed terraced house.

I have central heating with 6 radiators, with an Ariston Microgenus HE 24 (KW) MFFI combi boiler.

In my living room (which has a radiator in it) I have a Kinder Oasis coal effect gas fire. I think the heat INPUT is Max 6.9KW or Min 4.2KW.

If i'm in the house in the evening, I'm usually in the living room so will only have the gas fire on (at it's min setting).

I wonder though, would it be more efficient to have the central heating on instead? The whole house would be heated, but I don't know if the boiler uses much more gas than the fire?

What is the most efficient thing to do from an energy usage viewpoint?

trickys77

I don't know the exact efficiently ratings for your fire and boiler but the problem with gas fires is that most of the heat goes up the chimney and is wasted. I know even modern ones are only around 60% efficient. You can get new gas fires which don't have a chimney and are more efficent however I can see from google that yours is not this type. Modern combi’s are around 90% efficient so I would use the central heating to heat and the fire on the lowest setting if you wanted the fire effect.

Regarding heating the whole house if you have radiator valves you could just turn them all down except in the living area.

beaker141

I did a test similar to this years back, had the gas fire on for an hour and read the gas meter before and after, then put heating on for the same for the whole house and read the meters.

I recall it was marginally more for the whole house than the gas fire, I vowed never to bother getting a gas fire again.

Tammer

Thanks,

I'll try that experiment myself. Had the boiler on for an hour and the counter only changed by 0.2 "units".

Will try it again with the gas fire on and see what the reading says.

paul5046

What was your decision. In the same situation myself.

Second question. Is there such a thing as radiator valves/ thermostats that can be controlled from a single point. Say for example the house is full of people and you want every room warm, then you set it to all rooms. Next day, only you are at home in the living room. Does such a thing exist where you can shut off all the other radiators except the living room one from a single point. The alternative is to go round each room and shut off the radiators manually, not much fun.

MX5huggy

Yes you can have such a controls but the cost would put you off plus you would put on weight not doing all that exercise.