Is your heating ON or OFF?

ceridwen

Ahh! A bit of daylight dawns then. So I guess this concept of a "slave radiator" may apply to those systems where I'm told one cant "divorce" heating and hot water . I do read comments sometimes from people which seem to imply that they have problems with/cant have on ONLY the hot water I dont understand that - as one has on the hot water throughout the year and then come winter one also switches on the central heating as I understand it - thats how it functions in this house anyways and always did (even back when I had that little backboiler struggling away to do my 7 radiators - and the consequent visit after visit after visit from the Gas Board, as I complained and complained and complained that the heating wasnt working properly - until someone told me the back boiler wasnt up to the job and I had the boiler swopped).

calleyw

ceridwen wrote: »

Ahh! A bit of daylight dawns then. So I guess this concept of a "slave radiator" may apply to those systems where I'm told one cant "divorce" heating and hot water .

We have a combi boiler. When you draw water it takes president over the heating and then switches back.

I have no idea why we had to have one but was told we had to have one. Makes no odds to me just means in the bathroom I can't turn the rad off. But means the bathroom is always nice and cosy when I have a bath or shower.

Yours

Calley

cakemaker

Our woodburning stove does our hot water and heating. We have had 4 fires so far, 3 due to having guests. We have a thermometer in the lounge and light the fire if it is 16 in the evenings, or 17 and raining as I hate being cold and damp. The motivation for this is that we haven't got a big stock of wood yet, so we are saving it for when it is really cold!! (And constantly looking on skips for more wood)

Glad

my boiler does either water or heating or both together
we have a radiator in the hall with no thermostat, I think the reason is that if someone turned all the radiators off but then turned heating on at boiler there would be no 'safety valve' so could cause big problems
some newer boilers have a bypass valve on the boiler itself but every house I've been in has had the 'slave' radiator

hth

jackieb

My last boiler was a back boiler. We couldn't have the water on separate from the heating - we had one heater in the hall that had to be on of we were heating water.

We were so happy when we moved house and discovered that we could have hot water on without the heating as well. Our kitchen radiator has no thermostat. If all the other radiators were turned off and the heating was on, then the kitchen one would stay on.

calleyw

Glad wrote: »

my boiler does either water or heating or both together
we have a radiator in the hall with no thermostat, I think the reason is that if someone turned all the radiators off but then turned heating on at boiler there would be no 'safety valve' so could cause big problems
some newer boilers have a bypass valve on the boiler itself but every house I've been in has had the 'slave' radiator

hth

Mine allows to do one at a time or both. What I meant is when the heating is on and you draw it then it goes back to heating the hot water for the ch system.

My system was put in about 3 years ago.

Think you are right about that.

Yours

Calley

jimmyay

I live in South London and it's not been necessary to have the heating on at all yet.

The last couple of years i've switched it on for an hour or so in the evening and morning from mid November onwards. It goes off in mid March when the weather warms up.

I live in a 2 bed flat with double glazing and neighbours above and on one side and the flat faces fully south. So in a sense quite fortunate. My combined gas and electric bills are no more than about £300 per year, but i am careful about usage.

when i was up north with relatives a couple of weeks ago it was cold in their large house, fires were on and it felt right. so i guess it just depends where you live in the UK, there are big differences in climate and of course house type. I feel very sorry for the old folk in big houses in the north - it can be grimly cold in winter up there and having lived in such a house in the past i can see how sometimes you can need heating in any month betweeen september and june! glad i moved south!

Olliebeak

Now I'm a bit confused about the different c/h systems as well . I've got a combi boiler and get hot water 'on demand'. The c/h is on a timer and there is a thermostat in the living room to control the temperature (I have it set at 18 at the moment), but there are also control valves on the radiators (apart from the living room one) AND there is something on the front of the boiler that you can set to supposedly increase the c/h temperature. So many things to set to get the temperature correct - I'm now worse than ever .

spankymonkey_2

same as mine ollie, i had problems with my ch last week where the water wasnt heating up(the valve wasnt working to divert the hot water) and the 1 radiator with no temp dial in hall was red hot, this is because that radiator is used as an overflow, when there is a problem so the repair man said........

ceridwen

Thanks for that.

Could be that my heating was not just a "bodge job" - but a dangerous bodge job - to start with.

The house had thermostats on every radiator already at the time I bought it and has now gone through:

- inadequate backboiler doing both central heating and hot water heating
- then the backboiler only struggling to do the heating - but the hot water heating was done by a multipoint
- then a couple of years ago I had both the heating and hot water put to come from a modern condensing boiler

Throughout the chopping and changing theres always been a thermostat on each radiator and I've turned them all up/down/off as I thought I would. Since the condensing boiler was put in there is now a house thermostat as well (not digital :mad: - I didnt realise it needed to be a digital one at that time and my "little man" didnt tell me - shoulda bought the computer and had access to t'Internet BEFORE getting the boiler, then I would have known of myself).

So - I'm guessing I was in "bodge job" situation till I got this modern condensing boiler - but it didnt cause me a problem - and that now I have this modern boiler I've got this bypass valve on the boiler itself. I'm guessing that previous central heating systems were installed without the bypass valve on the boiler itself - but that they cant do that anymore because customers insist on refusing to have on any particular radiator unless they themselves decide to.

EDIT: 'Course we're now into needing to swop the whole kit and caboodle for heat pump/solar panels/et al - er £20,000? - HOW MUCH!!!! - errr......well...its on the wishlist......(otherwise known as "When I win the Lottery list" - but then the first thing I'd do is move anyway - LOL).