Turning Down Temperature on Boiler

djp64

I have a common or garden gas boiler that I presume heats the water for storage in the immersion heater cylinder. Both the boiler and the immersion heater cylinder have a thermostat on them.

I try not to use the heating from March until October / November so only use the boiler for heating hot water for showers etc.

The thermostat on the boiler is set to 6 (max being 7) so as I'm only heating hot water for showers is it OK to turn this down for the summer so that the water is fine for shower temperature? Are there any drawbacks to doing this?

When I start using the heating again - do I turn it back up to maximum or is there an optimum setting from a money saving / efficiency perspective.

I have not touched the thermostat on the hot water cylinder (in the airing cupboard). Am I right in thinking that this only comes into play if I decide to use the immersion heater?

Thank you for any advice / thoughts.

Debbie

SuzieSue

I turn my boiler thermostat down to between 3 and 4 in the summer and up again to between 5 and 6 in the winter (this is what the instruction manual told me to do).

The thermostat on the immersion heater should be kept at around 65 degrees all year round.

cajef

djp64 wrote: »

I have not touched the thermostat on the hot water cylinder (in the airing cupboard). Am I right in thinking that this only comes into play if I decide to use the immersion heater?

Do you mean the thermostat in the immersion heater or one on the side of the water cylinder that looks like this?

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&biw=1240&bih=570&q=cylinder+thermostat&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=5056941440387259481&sa=X&ei=Gyf2TfaILsal8QPiwYCTBw&ved=0CEwQ8wIwAQ#

djp64

Thank you for your replies

Cajef - no I don't mean that one. I haven't touched that one as my limited understanding is that this one only comes into effect if I choose to use the immersion heater for heating water.

I'm talking about the thermostat / heat control on the actual boiler. I have taken a photograph if this would help :-)

Debbie

gas4you

Best efficiency in your case, will be to not turn down the boiler stat much further, as keeping this higher will make the boiler heat the hot water cylinder quicker, then the cylinder stat on the side of the cylinder, which should be set at 60c, will shut the boiler off quicker when the cylinder of hot water has heated up.

cajef

djp64 wrote: »

Cajef - no I don't mean that one. I haven't touched that one as my limited understanding is that this one only comes into effect if I choose to use the immersion heater for heating water.

If you have one of those and that is the one on the water cylinder you are referring to it has nothing to do with the immersion heater it controls the gas boiler, when the water in the cylinder reaches the temperature that is set to it switches the boiler off.

All the thermostat on the boiler does is control the temperature of the boiler you can turn it down in summer to 4 or 5 but I would not advise setting it lower as it will just take longer to heat the water up and as already stated you risk Legionella at lower temperatures.

The immersion heater is controlled by a thermostat mounted in its own housing.

djp64

Thank you both for the explanations - my limited understanding was badly wrong :-)

I will follow your advice and leave the settings as they are.