Oil Fired Central Heating....constant or on timer

reallylost

Hi there
I was just having an argument with my OH...(nothing new there..LOL)
But I thought it would be better and more economical to leave the heating on all the time with the radiators on low, so it doesnt have to work as hard to heat the house, but he thinks it would be better to just have it coming on a few times a day, with the rads at full blast.
The main problem is that overnight the house is colder than our freezer.
any thoughts or advice greatly appreciated.

keystone

Once you get heat into the fabric of the building it will stay there if you keep the system on tickover and over a period of time you will see fuel efficiencies. Keep letting the building go cold and damp and the system has to puff a bit to warm it up again. But you won't see fuel efficiencies happen overnight!

Just my 2c. Someone will be along in a moment with an opposing view.

Cheers

willista

What a coincidence! I am having a similar argument with my OH at the moment so I look forward to the replies.

Imp

keystone wrote: »

Once you get heat into the fabric of the building it will stay there if you keep the system on tickover and over a period of time you will see fuel efficiencies. Keep letting the building go cold and damp and the system has to puff a bit to warm it up again. But you won't see fuel efficiencies happen overnight!

Just my 2c. Someone will be along in a moment with an opposing view.

Cheers

I thought I'd come along with an opposing view.:D

All the heat that your central heating boiler produces is lost to the outside world. The rate that heat is lost is related to the temperature difference between the inside and the outside.

If you let your house cool down when you are not there, or when you are asleep, then the heat that the house is loosing will be less during these periods. The longer you can keep the house at the lower temperatures, the better - less heat is lost so less heat is needed.

Naturally, you will want to have a warm, comfortable house when you are awake and at home. The quicker you can get the house up to temperature, the longer you can wait before having the system turned on, so if you have a decent central heating system, you could set it to turn on half an hour before you wake in the morning, and half an hour before you get in from work, turning off as you leave for work or go to bed.

If the house isn't getting up to temperature quickly enough, then you may have to have the central heating on for longer before you wake/come home from work.

This all assumes you are only need the house to be warm for a couple of hours in the morning and half a dozen hours in the evening. If you don't leave the house in during the day, then, assuming you have a modern condensing boiler, it may be cheaper for the water temparture of the central heating to be turned down so the condensing function works better, and leaving the system on tick over.

You do have thermostatic radiator valves, don't you, and radiators are turned off in rooms you don't use?