Is your heating ON or OFF?

YorksLass

Wednesday2000 - Yes, it's surprising just how much gunk gets trapped behind radiators, especially in the living room.  I clean behind mine twice a year with a gadget I bought many years ago from one of the £1 shops.  It's a bit like an extra-long flat ruler covered by a sleeve of felt-type fabric with "fingers" down the long sides.  The gunk clings to the fabric (although some does go on the floor) that can then be shaken outside and washed ready for the next session.  It came as a set of two, one long, one shorter, and they're also useful for dusting the small gap between the top of the washing machine and worktop.

We've gone from switching the heating on/off as/when required to on the timer, a short burst in the morning, another short burst at lunchtime and then a longer burst early evenings.  The main stat is set at 18 and we use the TRVs to regulate the individual radiators (bathroom and living room only, not needed in the bedrooms - yet).  Top temperatures here are around the 11/12c mark during the day and down to as little as 3c overnight with no prospect of improving soon.  I'm so glad we don't have storage heaters any more, both for the cost of running them and the difficulty in regulating them efficiently.  Made worse by the fact we were on Economy 7 then and, since we were out at work all day, it just didn't work for us.  Of course they may well have improved since we had them but I'm happy with my gas central heating.

Little tip - if your radiators are under a window tuck the curtains behind them or, if they're not long enough, rest them on the window sill - no point in heating up the window!  

Auntycaz

YorksLass said:

Wednesday2000 - Yes, it's surprising just how much gunk gets trapped behind radiators, especially in the living room.  I clean behind mine twice a year with a gadget I bought many years ago from one of the £1 shops.  It's a bit like an extra-long flat ruler covered by a sleeve of felt-type fabric with "fingers" down the long sides.  The gunk clings to the fabric (although some does go on the floor) that can then be shaken outside and washed ready for the next session.  It came as a set of two, one long, one shorter, and they're also useful for dusting the small gap between the top of the washing machine and worktop

Little tip - if your radiators are under a window tuck the curtains behind them or, if they're not long enough, rest them on the window sill - no point in heating up the window!  

Great minds think alike. I did that last week. It's surprising how much difference it makes. I've pinned a spare set of curtains behind the ones already up, making them a double thickness. I've done this with my door curtains too. I've also got draught excluders at all my doors. Every little bit helps.

Cherryfudge

I'm feeling blessed as we're obviously a bit warmer than many of you: it's 15 indoors and we've not felt the need of heating yet today. Keeping busy has helped but you need the health to do that so I can see it's a double whammy for those who aren't mobile (can't warm yourself through activity and may not have the levels of income to put the heat on).

I think the heat may go on later but not for very long. Meanwhile the dishwasher is generating a bit of warmth. Tomorrow, if I'm organised, the oven will be on for the Christmas cake so I might look for other things to cook at the same time.

KxMx

So this is my first winter here and I posted previously about the coldest room naturally being also furthest from the boiler so the slowest to get heated.
I checked that the system was visibly balanced, turned off one radiator and turned down another leaving living room & bedroom at max as they are biggest rooms and where I spend most time. Not much improvement. 

It turns out I had a very small leak from my boiler (undetectable outside at meter but found in kitchen where boiler is). I can vouch that Cadent are brilliant and all the emergency systems work very very well.

This morning the heating heated up super quick, even in bedroom, and I'm no longer desparing about the winter ahead with a fully working but somewhat ineffective system. 

20 minutes later I was able to turn it off whereas before after about 45 minutes the radiators were maybe fairly warm at best.

I didn't realise until yesterday that gas can smell musty, I have detected that odour in there before but thought of water/drains first. When I went into kitchen while heating was on and smelled it again, suddenly occurred to me it could be gas, so I needed to get it checked. 

The engineer said it was a very small leak but even so I'm glad I tend to open the windows a lot as he thinks it likely it's been present for some time, that ties in looking back since May! 

Cherryfudge

@KxMx, thank you for that - a warning as well as good news! I wonder how many households are risking health and wealth because of an undetected fault? We had no idea we had a build-up of carbon monoxide till the alarm went off, but the chap came out at about 2 in the morning during a stormy January night and checked everything, then sealed off the log burner till we'd had the chimney swept... and we're still here to tell the tale, as well as having a source of heat should the central heating not be available at some point.

It must have been a lovely moment when you got all that heat!

mrs_motivated

The boiler had its annual service last week, the guy was telling me quite a lot of his regular customers hadn’t bothered this year, I’m assuming it’s to do with finances been stretched but still a little worrying.

My heating is set at 17degrees at the moment and kicked in a few times today and yesterday.  I’m lucky my house is reasonably energy efficient and rarely gets very cold.

MiserlyMartin

Still off here but its getting cold in here now

mjm3346

Apart from a couple of hours mid-afternoon when there was sunshine it has just been varying strengths of rain all day - the sun was enough to lift it to 16 compared to the 14 and a bit yesterday but strangely I feel colder and have just put a jumper on.

Coffeekup

Last 3 or so days have mainly been rain, and mist in mornings/evening's, with the occasional your of sun.
Outside temps have been dropping like the rest of the country, inside house temps have been dropping to 12.5 at it's lowest and 14 on average last since last update. Not seen the humidity in the house go below 70%, it's been 80% but that's what the outside humidity has been so no matter how long the windows are open it's roughly the same as the outside humidity levels. Have thought about getting a dehumidifier, as I read ideally it should be between 30-60%.
But still no heating on yet, TV watching under a fleece blanket.

Rosa_Damascena

Not switched mine on yet but I know I have to.

October was mild and my gas and electricity usage was minimal. I just cannot get my head round the bill, its almost as if they charge for the privilege of breathing.