Cheaper to leave central heating on or not?

squelchy69

Hello all

I have heard that it is cheaper to leave you central heating on and adjust the thermostat than it is to turn it on and off.

I believe that this may be because it takes longer and more energy to heat the house up when it gets cold than it is to keep it at a constant temperature.

Since hearing this I have left mine on and the thermostat on about 19 degrees. The heating clicks on and off a couple of times a day to maintain this.

Am I doing the moneysaving thing?
Or should I turn the heating off altogether (and put it on when we feel cold!)

Jo :cool:

PS I will be turning it off completely when the weather heats up ....lol.

rsykes2000

You could do a control test - a week of each and work out the units used. Personally I doubt keeping it on will be moneysaving, I suspect that overnight your house will be heated unnecessarily (as you're asleep and not noticing the benefit) and the same in the day if you're out at work. Mine is on for an hour in the morning and same in the evening, works fine for us

penrhyn

No its not cheaper.

I'd advise a programmable thermostat which can set different temperatures at different times of the day.

You don't need your rooms as hot when you are active or asleep.

JasX

No its not cheaper, thats just an internet myth spread to people who wern't paying attention in physics class.

Things that will save you money:

1-Good insulation
2-having your heating on for as short a time as possible at as low a setting as possible

Things that will not save you money

1-having your central heating on all the time because the internet said so



The hotter your house is at any given point in time the faster it will be leaking heat at that point in time, heat costs money*.

(*although can cost different amounts of money at different times of day if you have economy tarifffs)

gmang

This has been covered many times on this forum. Do a little search.

macman

squelchy69 wrote: »

Hello all

I have heard that it is cheaper to leave you central heating on and adjust the thermostat than it is to turn it on and off.

I believe that this may be because it takes longer and more energy to heat the house up when it gets cold than it is to keep it at a constant temperature.

Since hearing this I have left mine on and the thermostat on about 19 degrees. The heating clicks on and off a couple of times a day to maintain this.

Am I doing the moneysaving thing?
Or should I turn the heating off altogether (and put it on when we feel cold!)

Jo :cool:

PS I will be turning it off completely when the weather heats up ....lol.

Look at the other numerous posts on this topic. And the reply is always the same. The longer your boiler is firing, the more it will cost you. Put it on a timer, so it comes on before you are back sufficiently to warm the house.
Heating an empty house is just throwing your money away, unless you think it's 100% insulated.

DVardysShadow

gmang wrote: »

This has been covered many times on this forum. Do a little search.

Done to death. I am fed up with correcting this misconception.

Cardew

It really should be a 'sticky' because this 'urban myth' comes up half a dozen times each year.

Dave_save

penrhyn wrote: »

No its not cheaper.

I'd advise a programmable thermostat which can set different temperatures at different times of the day.

You don't need your rooms as hot when you are active or asleep.

I've found, now that the weather is milder, it's possible to reduce the room thermostat setting a couple of degrees, with no loss in comfort. The temptation is to leave it at its normal setting during the heating periods. But I might invest in a programmable one.

housebug

This Winter, we set the boiler to come on in the early a.m (to warm the house up a bit before getting up for work), again in the late afternoon (so you don't come home to a freezing house) and once more before bed in the late evening. With the exception of January, which was particularly cold, the heating only came on twice a day; in the a.m. and again in the afternoon. We set the thermostat on 18C and turned the radiators right down in unused spaces such as the spare bedroom and the entrance way. Set the rest at the halfway point. Used the gas fire in the front room only occasionally and only for short periods. As opposed to using it all the time with the CH left off as we stupidly did in the past. Leaving the rest of the house still cold and with a big bill to boot. Doh!

Quarterly heating bills for end of September 09 through to March 22 of this year have totalled just under £250. We think that's excellent for a large, two bed flat in a newish building. The bill will start dropping steadily now and in the Summer is never more than £10 a month.

This has to have been the most comfortable Winter I've spent yet in our nine years in England. We'll use the same method for next Winter.

Now if only we could get the electric bill down so well!

iangooner

try running for 4 days as normal take meter reading first eg 00025
after 4 days take reading again eg 00055
run for 4 days on once [when up to bed ] turn boiler stat down to 65/70 then roomstat to 19 then take reading again eg 00070 try it!!!!!!!!!!
because when you heat the first time it takes all the power of the boiler to heat fully when cold and just a trickle when hot so doing it twice a day use's twice the gas as then once and a slow trickle !!!!!!!!!