Central heating question - how to use it best

skyepark

do you need to keep it on until 10.30pm? arent most people snuggled into bed by then? i suggest turn it off at nine and snuggle under a blanket until bed.

jap200

I had an energy survey done on my house today by a local insulation company as part of the Snug as a Bug scheme. I asked the question about leaving central heating on vs turning it off and the answer was that in most situations it would be probably better to turn it off during the day, but it depends greatly on when you have it coming on/off, how high you have your thermostat set and also how well insulated your house is - so apparently not clear cut.

I got a quote for cavity wall insulation for £269 (4-bed detached house), including the 'snug-as-a-bug' grant (the one available to all households as we do not get any benefits that would entitle us to the bigger grant). It would otherwise have been over £400, so it sounds good. The guy also suggested doing loft insulation ourselves rather than getting them to do it as it is easy to do. He thought we could do it for around £100, compared to £300 if they did it.

As far as insulating the flat roofs of the long dormer windows is concerned, the only options are to do this from the outside - when replacing the flat roofs, or from the inside, by taking down the ceilings! Both options sound v expensive compared to potential energy savings. We still have the original flat roofs that were put on when the house was built in the mid 1960's, so we will probably need to renew them some time over the next few years and will address the issue then.

Ken68

Thank you for the feedback, Jap, always nice to see a completion.
It does explain why my brother was so keen to leave his chalet style bungalow.

MarkyMarkD

Nobody else appears to have said this (and sorry if they have) but condensing boilers work far more efficiently when they are at full demand. In other words, they run more cheaply heating the house in a short, sharp burst from relatively cold, rather than cycling on and off all day long.

Savvy_Sue

skyepark wrote:

do you need to keep it on until 10.30pm? arent most people snuggled into bed by then? i suggest turn it off at nine and snuggle under a blanket until bed.

There's activity on the forums all night long, a few diehard Pigsbackers staying up until midnight to do the new crossword and 2 am to do the new quizzes ...

We're rarely in bed before midnight, and often it's freezingly later than that!

exlibris

My experience was admittedly in the mid-seventies. We had our central heating changed to a back boiler at the beginning of November. the installer (contractor for BG) suggested that we left the heat on all the time but turmed the thermostat down to about 15 overnight.

Being sceptical we tested this. Left November on the clock and put December on the thermostat. Gas usage was £7 less in December. we have since always kept the heating on and turned the thermostat down at night. I also found that it doesn't need turning up in the mornings when doing housework etc but only when sitting down usually on MSE!

Condenser boilers will probably make a difference to our experiment but I don't now anything about them.

jap200

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Nobody else appears to have said this (and sorry if they have) but condensing boilers work far more efficiently when they are at full demand. In other words, they run more cheaply heating the house in a short, sharp burst from relatively cold, rather than cycling on and off all day long.

Well I never knew that - thanks for the info!

jayarr_2

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Nobody else appears to have said this (and sorry if they have) but condensing boilers work far more efficiently when they are at full demand. In other words, they run more cheaply heating the house in a short, sharp burst from relatively cold, rather than cycling on and off all day long.

Just asked husband about this-CH engineer, says you need to have correct size of radiators if you have a condensing boiler-that it is recommended that you undersize to the room size so that the boiler is constantly working (think ive got that right)

tomstickland

Leaving CH on all the time versus timed for the same temperature setting will cost more.
Lowering temperature setting and leaving on all the time vs timed at higher setting could cut costs.

Personally I'd choose to lower the temperature setting and set the timing points earlier.

dawnybabes

We've got a new thermostat that we can set the temp vs time so we have it on all day but have the temp changing hence we have it warmer in the morning/night and have it lower during day (I run hotter than hubby so like it cooler) and it keeps ticking over in the night. Think the temp changes about 7 times a day .....