radiators off = no gas used?

klimbolee

Hi, I live in a upstairs of a converted shared house/ flat and the boiler is downstairs so at the moment I do not have access to it. The tenant donwstairs has agreed to keep the boiler on the hot water all the time but we are unsure what to arrange in terms of the gas / central heating as we don't want to run up a massive bill but I want to be able to turn the heating on when I need to.

I have been told by an engineer that with a new combi boiler, if you leave the boiler turned to the heating and hot water but the radiators are all off, it does not use any gas. If this is true, then we will be able to just turn our radiators on when we need to but not waste any gas. (ps we have agreed that I'll pay more of the gas bill as I am in more and we cannot have it on a timer as I work shifts). Please help!!!!!

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

A combi will of course use gas if it is supplying hot water for taps baths etc.

If the combi is switched to constant heating, then to ensure it doesn't fire and use gas the room(wall) thermostat must be turned down below the temperature in the room.

How this would work with one boiler supplying two flats is unclear. If the wall thermostat is downstairs(and is turned down) then turning on your radiator will have no effect as the boiler is still effectively switched off by this thermostat.

The other problem will be that upstairs in a converted building is normally for bedrooms and the radiators are sized to maintain a lower heat than the living rooms downstairs. So a comfortable temperature for the person downstairs will cut off the boiler before you are comfortable.

bengasman

klimbolee wrote: »

I have been told by an engineer that with a new combi boiler, if you leave the boiler turned to the heating and hot water but the radiators are all off, it does not use any gas.

Definitely not true.
Are you the landlord or second tenant?
Is it a shared house or two flats?

Pincher

Zone valves.

One set of single channel programmer, hallway thermostat and zone valve for ground floor, another set for 1st floor. S-Plan Plus, plus a bit more.

Alternatively, a Mid-position valve might work, driven by two thermostats. When you don't want heating, turn yours down.

It's all do-able, but god knows what calibre of heating engineer will be doing it.

If you get on with them, it's not necessarily a bad thing. One standing charge instead of two, one broadband instead of two, one BT line rental, etc.