Having heating set to come on and off and on and off

dixie_dean_2

Hi

To save money and to stop the house getting too hot (I'm a hot person and find it gets too hot if its on all the time) I set the heating to go off for say about 10 mins every half hour or so. Is this bad for the boiler? Its a gas combi boiler and its very old but works fine, touch wood!

Thanks in advance.

Cardew

Boilers switch on and off every few minutes throughout their lives anyway - thats what they are designed to do.

However the temperature in your property should be controlled by a thermostat(s) not by the boiler being controlled by a timer.

Assuming you have radiators, they should have thermostatic valves fitted if possible. This way you can control the heating in each room - you dont normally want bedrooms heated during the day.

If you haven't got radiator valves you control the temperature by the room(wall) thermostat.

Tallymanjohn

You'd be better off using the room thermostat, if you have one, to set the overall temperature. Apart from that, you shouldn't be doing any harm to the boiler as they are designed to work 'on-demand' so switching on & off at short intervals is what they do. Just make sure you have it regularly serviced.

dixie_dean_2

Hi

I was told that having individual thermostats on the radiators was quite a job or would cost a fair bit from a plumber. I'm a modern man - Ikea is about my DIY limit and money's a bit tight to be paying a plumber. The main thermostat is not very effective. The heating tends to stay on, or if it does turn off it wont come on again unless you manually crank it up a few degrees.

Thanks again.

Cardew

dixie_dean wrote:

Hi

I was told that having individual thermostats on the radiators was quite a job or would cost a fair bit from a plumber. I'm a modern man - Ikea is about my DIY limit and money's a bit tight to be paying a plumber. The main thermostat is not very effective. The heating tends to stay on, or if it does turn off it wont come on again unless you manually crank it up a few degrees.

Thanks again.

Fitting valves to radiators is a very simple job for a plumber and shouldn't cost that much. Worth getting it done if you can find a plumber who won't rip you off.

The problem with wall thermostats is they are often badly sited and as you say not very effective in controlling heat in the whole house.

Jet

Cardew wrote:

Boilers switch on and off every few minutes throughout their lives anyway - thats what they are designed to do.

However the temperature in your property should be controlled by a thermostat(s) not by the boiler being controlled by a timer.

Assuming you have radiators, they should have thermostatic valves fitted if possible. This way you can control the heating in each room - you dont normally want bedrooms heated during the day.

If you haven't got radiator valves you control the temperature by the room(wall) thermostat.

I haven't got a room stat but each radiator has thermostatic valves. However, they only seem to have 2 temperatures - on or off!

I have to either heating on full blast or not at all - would it be worth replacing the thermostats on the radiators?

Cardew

Jet wrote:

I haven't got a room stat but each radiator has thermostatic valves. However, they only seem to have 2 temperatures - on or off!

I have to either heating on full blast or not at all - would it be worth replacing the thermostats on the radiators?

Thats how they are supposed to work. By that I mean you can't set it to have a warm(as opposed to hot) radiator.

When the temperature in the room falls below the set temperature, all they do is open to allow the hot water in the system into the radiator.

When the room reaches the set temperature it closes and stops hot water entering the radiator.

Just turn it slightly on and check that the radiator heats up and then cools down.

It is just the same as you turning the radiator on and off yourself; except the valve does it by sensing the room temperature.

The_Explorer_2

Cardew wrote:

Thats how they are supposed to work. By that I mean you can't set it to have a warm(as opposed to hot) radiator.

When the temperature in the room falls below the set temperature, all they do is open to allow the hot water in the system into the radiator.

When the room reaches the set temperature it closes and stops hot water entering the radiator.

Just turn it slightly on and check that the radiator heats up and then cools down.

It is just the same as you turning the radiator on and off yourself; except the valve does it by sensing the room temperature.

It is also important the thermostatic valves are on the flow side of the radiator (ie where the hot water comes in), if they are on the other side the the valves are trying to open against the pressure of the circulation pump, and therefore aren't very effective.

You can check this easily; the end of the radiator closest to the thermostatic valve should get warm first when your heating starts.

david29dpo

TVRs are easy to fit, you can do it!! bin the old wall thermostat and get a programable one and leave the timer on constant . you can get wireless ones now so you can put it in a better place.