Gas on constantly or on and off...?

graemepark

Hi all,

I am a relatively new home owner and I live in a large property with poor insulation. I cannot change the insulation as I will move quickly and am only renting the property.

I currently have a combi gas boiler on a computer timer. I heat the house for a hour in the morning 0600-0730 so that it is warm when we wake up and for a few hours at night 1800-2200 when we return home from work. The system like most is also on a thermostat.

I pay a fixed price gas bill where the first so many units come at one price and the next ones are a fair amount cheaper. for this service I pay a fixed rate fee of a few pounds and then I decide how much to pay on top to cover the bill.

Someone has recently told me that it is cheaper to leave the boiler on and on the thermostat all day even when we are out of the house as this avoids the system heating the whole house from freezing and simply tops it up to maintain the temperature.

What is your experiences of this, will this result in a cheaper bill?

C_Mababejive

I would recommend that you only heat the house when it is occupied and when heat is needed. In colder weather,wear a thermal vest so that you feel warmer.

SuzieSue

graemepark wrote: »

Hi all,

I am a relatively new home owner and I live in a large property with poor insulation. I cannot change the insulation as I will move quickly and am only renting the property.

I currently have a combi gas boiler on a computer timer. I heat the house for a hour in the morning 0600-0730 so that it is warm when we wake up and for a few hours at night 1800-2200 when we return home from work. The system like most is also on a thermostat.

I pay a fixed price gas bill where the first so many units come at one price and the next ones are a fair amount cheaper. for this service I pay a fixed rate fee of a few pounds and then I decide how much to pay on top to cover the bill.

Someone has recently told me that it is cheaper to leave the boiler on and on the thermostat all day even when we are out of the house as this avoids the system heating the whole house from freezing and simply tops it up to maintain the temperature.

What is your experiences of this, will this result in a cheaper bill?

I live in a small 3 bedroom detached house which is 14 years old and probably better insulated than yours, however I leave the central heating on 24/7 during the winter and my gas and electricity direct debit (combined) is £38 per month (it was £56 per month last year before I changed to Scottish Power Online 7). Obviously, my gas charges are much less in the summer than in the winter, however, I pay a set amount by dd throughout the year. I keep the thermostat on at 14 degrees centigrade during the night and 16 degrees during the day. During the day, I wear lots of layers (5 under my sweatshirt and 3 under my trousers) and I use a small fan heater for 5 or 10 minutes to warm up the room I am going to be using (I work from home). In the kitchen I turn the gas rings on for 5 minutes to warm it up. I find that the house is always at a comfortable temperature and I think that my gas bills are low because it never needs to be heated up from scratch. Although I now work from home, I also did this when I used to work away from home and I found that my bills were lower than when I set the heating as you do at present. All I can say is that you should try both, but don't dismiss leaving the heating on 24/7 as it might well be cheaper depending on what temperature you set the thermostat at.

Sublime_2

I've had ours on permanently, as our house was freezing at night. I also take a hot water bottle to bed with me.

I'm trying not to think about the bills too much, as we pay a good monthly Standing Order, that should hopefully cover it.

macman

If you leave it on all day your bill will be massively higher-how do you think wasting heat all day could be cheaper? If you set the programmer to switch on say an hour before you come home then that should be enough time to warm the house up. If the insulation is that inadequate then you should hassle the landlord to do something about it.

C_Mababejive

Think simply>> Heating on?-meter turning over
Heating off?-meter not turning

Simples....

Cardew

This question comes up perhaps a dozen times each year - if you do a search you will find literally hundreds of posts on this issue.

It is without question cheaper to have the heating on timed rather than on constantly.

There is this Urban Myth that comes up time and again, that somehow it uses more energy to heat a house up from cold than to keep it at a constant temperature.

If that were the case then if you went away for a year, would you keep the house at a constant temperature? Of course not?

How about a month? A week? 3 days? All exactly the same principle. The longer your heating is off, the cheaper it will be.

By the way turning down the thermostat has exactly the same effect as turning off your heating.

Would you leave your kettle boiling all day, because it is cheaper to keep it at a constant temperature rather than letting it cool down and having to reheat it? Exactly the same principle.

shegar

SuzieSue wrote: »

I live in a small 3 bedroom detached house which is 14 years old and probably better insulated than yours, however I leave the central heating on 24/7 during the winter and my gas and electricity direct debit (combined) is £38 per month (it was £56 per month last year before I changed to Scottish Power Online 7). Obviously, my gas charges are much less in the summer than in the winter, however, I pay a set amount by dd throughout the year. I keep the thermostat on at 14 degrees centigrade during the night and 16 degrees during the day. During the day, I wear lots of layers (5 under my sweatshirt and 3 under my trousers) and I use a small fan heater for 5 or 10 minutes to warm up the room I am going to be using (I work from home). In the kitchen I turn the gas rings on for 5 minutes to warm it up. I find that the house is always at a comfortable temperature and I think that my gas bills are low because it never needs to be heated up from scratch. Although I now work from home, I also did this when I used to work away from home and I found that my bills were lower than when I set the heating as you do at present. All I can say is that you should try both, but don't dismiss leaving the heating on 24/7 as it might well be cheaper depending on what temperature you set the thermostat at.

Wow you may save on heating the house, but with the amount of clothes you are wearing at the same time , it must cost you a fortune to buy detergent and wash and get them dry , and also how do you move with so many clothes on maybe cheaper to turn the heating up a bit more and wear less clothes !!!!.

SuzieSue

shegar wrote: »

Wow you may save on heating the house, but with the amount of clothes you are wearing at the same time , it must cost you a fortune to buy detergent and wash and get them dry , and also how do you move with so many clothes on maybe cheaper to turn the heating up a bit more and wear less clothes !!!!.

Yes, that was what I thought before I tried wearing lots of layers - actually it is quite possible to move about as normal and I forgot to mention that if I ever do feel cold (very rarely) I do some exercise (lifting weights or go up and down the stairs). I don't do any more washing than anyone else because I only need to wash my outer layer and inner layer and I rotate the other layers. It suits me as I always feel warm (I remember when I lived with my parents they had the thermostat much higher, but I still often felt cold because I wasn't wearing lots of layers).

SuzieSue

Cardew wrote: »

This question comes up perhaps a dozen times each year - if you do a search you will find literally hundreds of posts on this issue.

It is without question cheaper to have the heating on timed rather than on constantly.

There is this Urban Myth that comes up time and again, that somehow it uses more energy to heat a house up from cold than to keep it at a constant temperature.

If that were the case then if you went away for a year, would you keep the house at a constant temperature? Of course not?

.

Well, if I went away for a year and left my house unoccupied, yes, I would keept it at a constant temperature probably 14 degrees (my mother's insurance company requires a house which is unoccupied by for over 60 days to have the heating kept on at 15 degrees at all times).

tomstickland

Someone has recently told me that it is cheaper to leave the boiler on and on the thermostat all day even when we are out of the house as this avoids the system heating the whole house from freezing and simply tops it up to maintain the temperature.

This is as old as the hills.
Where do they think the heat that's used to keep it warm goes all day?

If you were going on holiday for a month would it save money to leave the heating on so it didn't require heating from cold when you got back?