Central heating advice - most efficient way of heating the house

SHAKERMAKER

I'm really after some advice.
We're in a new build property (2yrs+) and we have a hot water tank/combi boiler system so we have the best of both worlds.
What I would like to know is as follows:
1) does anyone have this same system?
2) what is the most efficient way of setting the central heating timer? My OH thinks we should set the timer in short, sharp bursts only having the heating on for 15mins at a time. I, however, believe having the heating on for one hour at a time at least means the house has more chance to get warm and stay warm for longer before we need to put the heating on again.

Which way is right??
Thank you!

t0rt0ise

I can't imagine putting central heating on in 15 minute bursts. It's not the way it's meant to be used. The boiler itself will come on and go off in short bursts in order to keep the temperature stable. The usual question is whether it's cheaper to leave it on all day or for a few hours morning and evening and whenever people ask, the answers vary and the usual advice is to try it out for a week or so each way and see how much gas is used.

Premier_2

Have the heating on for as long as you like, will benefit from it, and of course can afford it.
Regulate it's output by use of a thermostat.

I'm not sure what you mean by having a combi with a hot water tank.

I thought the idea of a combi was to dispense with a hot water tank, heating the water on demand. :huh:

In my experience, unless there is a thermal store (which pumps the already hot water in the tank to the radiators - the opposite to a traditional system), then it takes well over 15 minutes to just heat the radiators up.
If you do have a thermal store, you're supposed to keep the boiler on all the time to maintain the thermal store - the boiler being controlled from the thermal store thermostat.

SHAKERMAKER

Its a hot water tank so we get constant hot water, yet with the benefit of a combi so when someone is in the shower the hot water doesn't go off when the washing machine is on. Its a new system aparrently, in new build properties. At least with Persimmon/Charles Church homes anyway! It's called a Gledhill system.

Thanks all!

bryanb

To heat a house efficiently first insulate very well.

Meatballs

Just watched an advert for worcester boilers just infront of Ray Mears...

Anyway he said that keeping the house at a reasonable base level and boosting it when you need it was more efficient than letting it drop.

Dunno how much truth there is in that though! Doesn't make sense to me...

Premier_2

SHAKERMAKER wrote: »

Its a hot water tank so we get constant hot water, yet with the benefit of a combi so when someone is in the shower the hot water doesn't go off when the washing machine is on. Its a new system aparrently, in new build properties. At least with Persimmon/Charles Church homes anyway! It's called a Gledhill system.

Thanks all!

Which Gledhill system is it, exactly?
I know Gledhill primarily for their thermal store systems.

Perhaps you could advise which exact boiler make & model you have too?

nutter4

Meatballs wrote: »

Anyway he said that keeping the house at a reasonable base level and boosting it when you need it was more efficient than letting it drop.

Dunno how much truth there is in that though! Doesn't make sense to me...

Didn't make sense to us either, but we tried it last winter in desperation. We'd been leaving the heating off all day, so it took all evening to get it to about 19 or 20 degrees, with the boiler firing up pretty much constantly - it was just comfortable when it was time to go bed, then freezing again in the morning.

We left the heating running to get the temperature up to about 20 for a few days, then just changed the thermostat setting to control it. Let it drop to no less than about 14 during the day, then it only took an hour or so to get it up to temp when we got in. Despite last winter being really bad, our bills weren't significantly higher. I think it works because the whole house acts as a thermal mass; if the house gets cold, temporary heating only heats the air, and the building acts as a heat sink. If the house itself is warm, it's like having a storage heater, then the heating just tops it up.

I do have to say this was in a house with very poor insulation (single skin/no cavity walls, very little loft insulation, dodgy glazing etc.). In a well-insulated house, I would think the same should apply, except that you'll need less heating in the first place, and less to keep it 'topped up'.

Pincher

It's probably a Boiler Mate BP

http://www.gledhill.net/building-products/bp-index.htm

This would suggest that the OP has two or more bathrooms
and the property is a house.

The advantage of the combi/cylinder setup is distance to the tap.
You place the wall mounted combi near the kitchen sink,
and the hot water cylinder next to the bathrooms.
This means you get hot water straightaway, wasting less water.
It also gives a better shower experience, since the temperature does not change much when someone turns on a tap. Ideally,
you also have a thermostatic shower mixer to compensate for temperature change.

None of this is relevant to the original question, which was a product of an idle mind with nothing better to do.

How do you intend to pulse the boiler every 15 minutes? Do you intend to punch the boost button and override button every 15 minutes? This is called cycling, and frequent cycling is NOT recommended.

SHAKERMAKER

Yes, you're right its a BoilerMate.
We have the thermostat downstairs in the hallway set to around 19degrees and the radiator thermostats are set to around number 2/3. In the rooms that we don't use we keep them down to setting 1.
We then have the heating timer set to come on in the morning, once in the afternoon and then at night. At night the heating is usually on between 6-8pm and 9-11pm. It's on for maybe half an hour in the morning and the same in the afternoon.
Would you say this is the most efficient way of maintaining heat? The other half reckons all we need is to have the timer set at 15min intervals in order to maintain warmth but I think putting the heating on for 15min bursts is less efficient than keeping it on for, say, and hour?
We've been in the house for 2.5yrs bought it brand new and have never really got to grips with the heating system. We are considering having a digital 7 day timer installed as at the moment we have a 24hr timer but our needs are different at the weekend and we need the heating on more often.
Thank you once again!

Premier_2

It'll make little difference, expect you may find periods of 15 minutes when you are getting cold as the heating timer will be off.

Why do you not have heating between 8pm and 9pm?
Just set the timer from 6pm to 11pm (unless you go out between 8pm and 9pm)

The thermostats are designed to maintain the desired temperature
The programmable timer is designed to allow you to programme when you actually want the heating on
Best results are usually obtained when they are used for their design purpose

What sort of timer do you have? Electronic or mechanical?
Ours came with a mechanical one fitted but that didn't last long as the heat soon degraded the plastic mechanical parts and so the timer failed completely.
We replaced it with the electronic version, but that only has 8 on/off programmes per day.