Is it best to keep heating on?

Robert2009

A figure used per day would be handy - or up to that time in the day, i.e. a running total.

But if you had a real time consumption figure you would know that if your boiler fired for 10 minutes every 30 minutes and during that 10 minutes it used say 1 kWh ( I have no idea if that figure is even near the real consumption, I am just using it to illustrate the point) you could quite easily work out how much you were spending on gas.

just like I know that if a 150 watt electrical appliance comes on for 5 minutes every hour it will use 300 watts a day which is 109.5 kWh a year and cost £10.95 a year.

Cardew

RichPyke wrote: »

Mine cost more when timed than when it was on at 21c all day every day. The difference was minimal though... on 24/7 was 25 imperial units used, timed (2 hours in morning, 6 in evening) was 26 imperial units used...

I've now left it on 24/7, however I do suspect the insulation in my house is poor, it seems to lose the heat very fast (something I am about to look in to).

I don't know if that is intended to be a joke or not?

Around 760kWh a day for 24 hours a day operation and 790 for 8 hours in the day??? about £200 a week?

ariba10

If you were a cook, and cooking twice a day using the oven.

Would you leave it on all day?

Cardew

Can we try another tack!

Heat loss from a house is governed by the law of thermodynamics.(if you cannot accept that is true – read no further)

To maintain a house at a set temperature, any heat lost has to be replaced.

Now if you were to go away for, say, two years from the house and leave it empty, would you agree that it would be cheaper to leave the heating off for that two years and switch it on when you return to the house.

Or, leave the heating on constantly for the two years because it would be cheaper?(if you think this is cheapest – read no further.)

If it was say 1 year? - 1 month? - 1 week? - 1 day? – 12hours? – 6 hours?

If you still maintain having it on constantly is cheaper, at what point do you feel that the law of thermodynamics ceases to apply?

RichPyke

Cardew wrote: »

I don't know if that is intended to be a joke or not?

Around 760kWh a day for 24 hours a day operation and 790 for 8 hours in the day??? about £200 a week?

No joke, although your sums are off. It's around £26/£27 a week and went UP when I had it turn off during the night and day.

m0j00

Been experimenting over the last couple of day myself.
Thermostat set @ 22 degrees C
Timed heating on @ 5am off @ 7am on again 15:30pm off 11pm
used 9m3 of gas.

On 24/7 now used 7.1m3 and 7.6m3 over the last 2 days.
In my situation its better to leave it on.
Been as low as -5 here during the day.

Rikki

Quick question. Which is the best setting on the boiler to use this time of year? Mine has a dial 1 - 6.

rfowler

Is it better to close the central heating in the room where it is not needed or does it not make any diffrence in terms of cost?

funkymonkey849

I have the heating on for about half an hour in the morning when I get up, and it goes back on at 5.30 when I get back home from work. I would never have it on when I'm not there, or in the night (unless we have a nuclear winter maybe).

We had the heating off for 3 weeks until a week ago cos the boiler was broken. The house did get very cold during this time, but once the boiler was fixed it only took half an hour to get back to a comfortable temperature.

Maybe we are just lucky living in a small mid terraced house with 2ft thick stone walls and a good boiler. Actually our central heating is immense - burned my bum the other day getting too close to a radiator :rotfl:

RichPyke

Cardew wrote: »

Can we try another tack!

Heat loss from a house is governed by the law of thermodynamics.(if you cannot accept that is true – read no further)

To maintain a house at a set temperature, any heat lost has to be replaced.

Now if you were to go away for, say, two years from the house and leave it empty, would you agree that it would be cheaper to leave the heating off for that two years and switch it on when you return to the house.

Or, leave the heating on constantly for the two years because it would be cheaper?(if you think this is cheapest – read no further.)

If it was say 1 year? - 1 month? - 1 week? - 1 day? – 12hours? – 6 hours?

If you still maintain having it on constantly is cheaper, at what point do you feel that the law of thermodynamics ceases to apply?

At what point are meter readings incorrect?

w/e 28th Nov: 25 cubic feet used (804 kwh). Programmer set to Heating: ON, Hot Water: 8pm-9pm daily.
w/e 5th Dec: 26 cubic feet used (836 kwh). Programmer set to Heating: 5:30-7:30, 4:00-12:00, Hot Water: 8pm-9pm daily.

Figure that one out... it took 32 kwh when I had it set to turn off during the day and overnight, i.e. for 10 hours as opposed to 24 hours. Nothing else changed besides the outside temperature (which may have stayed the same too).

These are actual figures.

Over 2 years there will be a point where no more heat can be lost and the temperature stays constant (in relation to outside temperature) therefore it cannot be used as a constructive argument when compared to one hour where (unless you have big heat loss problems) you will not reach the point where the amount of heat required to get back to temperature stops increasing... unless you are saying that the temperature inside the house will forever be decreasing over the 2 years...