Have you put your heating on for the winter?

rachelhen

so far only had on 3 short times 45mins to dry washing and intend to keep it off whenever possible.

cleggie

Yes, i put mine on 19 for 30mins in the morning. Luckily my house is really small, so takes no time at all to heat up and tends to stay warm.

elantan

mine has been on for the last few weeks ... its freezing here i can see my breath in the air all day ( and thats with the heating on) were trying not to have it too high but i think it will have to go up another wee bit ... i dont have a thermostat controller on the wall but i can control the heating with the boiler ( which goes up to 5, is currently on 1) i do have the radiator thermostats and try to keep the upstairs ones on 2 or 3 so that the heat goes to the down stairs of the house ( which is freezing even with the heating on) my combined gas and electricity is £145 a month which hurts alot

Yolina

Had it on for about 30 minutes in the evening a couple of days ago, been warm enough since then without (and my windows are currently wide open)

Edit: in London

chris1973

Not sure where this 'milder weather' is that people are refering to?. Must be just within a 20 mile radius of London . 10.8c here outside today at 2PM, with no obvious sunshine either, not exactly 'mild' under thick cloud unless you are out labouring or jogging.

Had three mornings with an air frost during the last week and it didn't get much above 6c during each of those days, and returned home on Wednesday evening to find the inside temperature in the bedroom (above an open car port) at 5c, not great for sleeping in and virtually impossible to heat cheaply. Currently seriously thinking about a sofa bed in the living room.

Had both storage heaters in the Lounge on input of '8' all last night, are just about managing to maintain a room temp of 16c at the moment (2.30pm) with one damper full open and the other one giving out residual heat. Will probably have to open the damper on the smaller one at around 5pm.

Fortunately they've given out a relatively mild night here tonight, with overnight temps remaining the same as in the day (10c - 11c) so I may get away with just the storage heating, and not have to fire up the paraffin fan heater in the evening to heat the 'fridge', unlike the last week when the output from the storage heaters was gone by 6pm and it fell as low as 12c by 8pm in the living room, with the outside at 0c - 4c

Not looking forward to the 'real' winter and cold weather setting in, as these storage heaters are next to useless beyond early November. From then onwards, I will be using E7 only to protect against frost and damp, and will be reliant on the Paraffin Inverter for main 'daytime' heat during the weekends and evenings after work. Electricity at 19p / KW/H is just too expensive to use to run any form of Electric heating, and Storage heaters simply do not maintain anything close to a comfortable temperature in this building, and with no mains Gas, LPG and a landlord controlled Energy Supplier there isn't much choice but to rely on the form of heating my great grandparents used to use .

sammyjammy

oldskoo1 wrote: »

It got too cold to be without, unlikely to go off now until March.

I run it 24/7 and it's at 16C now and been great.

Hopefully not going to be much more this year after the price hikes.

I was going to get a digital programmable thermostat but for the cost of £40 - £60 it would take ages to pay for itself.

16c when you've got heating on? In my lounge now its 18c without having had the heating on at all, where do you live? :eek:

jollyme

Waiting for the broken boiler fixing man to arrive

Ben84

Pincher wrote: »

New central heating system fully operational since Wesdnesday, including under floor heating.

The concept of switching it on and off is now irrelevant.
It has two temperatures, Comfort (=ON) and Eco (=OFF).
During the OFF periods, it just means it tries to maintain a lower temperature, say 10 degrees, so the boiler will still come on.

I have noticed that this system prefers to simmer along.
If I set the Comfort temperature to 18, it will get the house to about 16 degrees on high flame, and then drop down to low flame. It has every intention of getting to 18 degrees EVENTUALLY, but it's going to take its time doing it. The plumber had set the boiler output flow temperature to 66 degrees, but during simmer, it's around 44 to 48 degrees. This is great for condensing mode, and just what the UFH wants as well.

The previous boiler was 30 years old, and was either fully on or off. No funny business, 18 degrees is 18 degrees, got there every time, quick and no non-sense.

The new one is designed to mantain 18 degrees ALL winter, whereas I'm more of a if it's cold, stab the boost button person.
Probably set the Comfort temperature to 20, so I get to 18 degrees quick.

I'm guessing your new boiler is a modulating boiler like mine? They do behave somewhat differently I'm discovering. I quite like the way it turns down the flame and keeps supplying hot water constantly to the radiators when it gets near the set temperature to maintain even warmth. However, if the house is say 17 degrees and you turn it on to 19 just to take the chill out the house, it doesn't really do that very fast or effectively. I'm finding I have to turn it up to 20 or 21 for that initial blast of heat, then turn it down after a few minutes to trick it in to properly heating the radiators at the start. So, it seems to work best when you're aiming for a bigger temperature increase than two or three degrees.

Well, I'm not complaining, if this is the only oddity this system has then it's doing very well in comparison to the nearly 40 year old back boiler it replaced.

bilibala

I didn't put the heating on till the second lot of snow we had in December last year. Haven't put it on yet, don't think I could hold out till December for this year.

twiz21

I am in Central London.

It has been very warm here for days now.
I even brought a second thermometer from upstairs into the living room to check as I couldn't believe it.

They currently read 22.1 and 22.8 degrees, outside temp 13.4 (south facing).

We have had the back door and window open a fair bit as it feels too warm sometimes and with the dog going out.

Heating has been on twice since March and that was last week for one and two hours.

Council put in cavity wall insulation last month, and the place is already double glazed.