Gas on constantly or on and off...?

lola34

Mine was on twice 24hrs but I was waking up boiling, even though we hit -9 maybe lower, we are now averaging 2/3 degrees so its on 7-9am and 5-9pm, the electric fire in the lounge is on more,our house although 25 years old is always warm probably due to the boiler in the airing cupboard on the landing and in DS1's room you can feel the heat from the pipes under the floor

Chrysalis

Andy_WSM wrote: »

Are you down in Cornwall?

It's noticeably warmer here in North Somerset today too, but at 7C, I still need heating!

East midlands.

Tyler_Du

I did a quick test of this theory over xmas, when the heating was on 24/7 my gas usage went up by over 50% Its back to the timer / thermostat now

stevemcol

I carried on with the experiment. I found that as the outside temperature warmed up, after the cold spell, yes, I used about 10% more gas maintaining 15° during the day.

but

I also found during the cold spell that if I allowed the temperature to drop during the day, I could never get the house temperature to recover in the evening, with the heating flat out.

Interesting trial. Perhaps my boiler is under spec for the house.

Talldave

SuzieSue wrote: »

You can get programmable room thermostats now which you can set to different temperatures throughout the day.

...and they're fantastic! We hardly ever have to touch our prog stat other than to tell it that we're taking the day off tomorrow, going on holiday for 14 days, or having a party and want to delay the switch to the night temp setting!

stevemcol

Did anyone catch that Worcester infommercial on TV advising maintaining a base temperature. I only caught the back end of it.

Cardew

stevemcol wrote: »

Did anyone catch that Worcester infommercial on TV advising maintaining a base temperature. I only caught the back end of it.

The adverts are shown here.(click the red arrow for others)

http://blog.bhl.co.uk/tag/worcester-tv-advert/

Didn't see anything about a base temp, but if it did it would be for speed to bring the house up to temp, and not cost.

Meatballs

I'm pretty sure the worcester boiler ad (it's attached to Ray Mears tv show) says it is more 'efficient' to keep a base temp... Would have to see it again and take notes.

I don't believe it though

Cardew

Meatballs wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the worcester boiler ad (it's attached to Ray Mears tv show) says it is more 'efficient' to keep a base temp... Would have to see it again and take notes.

I don't believe it though

This then raises the usual retort.

If you go away from your house for, say, 10 years, is it more efficient to keep the house at a 'base' temperature while you are away?

How about a year? A month? A week? 24 hours? 12hours?

At what point do the Laws of Thermodynamics not apply?

mechy

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?

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.

Makes sence to me lol