Central heating controls in empty house over winter

bengasman

Just set the thermostat on 6 degrees Celcius, and leave it like that. As long as the temperature in the house is above that, the heating won't come on.

gterr

Thanks everyone. I'm moving towards leaving the CH on 24/7 with the room stat set low.

One more question: the electric boiler also does the hot water (lagged cylinder in loft with cylinder stat). There are motorised valves for both CH and hot water, so they can be switched on/off independently, and I can set different times for the HW on the timer. Do I leave the boiler making hot water too over the winter? If so, what settings?

Cheers

Pincher

You already have a frost stat with tubular heater, so it's unlikely to freeze in the loft anyway.

Only if you really want to:

The indirect hot water cylinder should have a backup immersion element, which is currently wired into a boost switch. Use a frost stat (if it can switch 13amp) to switch this immersion element on when cold. The immersion element has a built-in thermostat, turn it down to minimum (probably 45 degrees). So, when the loft gets cold, it switches the immersion element on, which heats the water to 45 degrees, and shuts off.

It sounds like you should have gone for electric panel heaters.
Inline electric water heater for kitchen and bath. Non-Economy 7 electricity. Then all you have to do is close the stopcock, drain the system, job done.

gterr

Pincher wrote: »

It sounds like you should have gone for electric panel heaters.
Inline electric water heater for kitchen and bath. Non-Economy 7 electricity. Then all you have to do is close the stopcock, drain the system, job done.

Thanks for your comments. I am very satisfied with the 'wet' radiators and Amptek electric boiler, on Economy 10. This is a 2-bed detached bungalow with big loft, used as a holiday cottage and let out for 30+ weeks per year. I put no restrictions on guests' use of electricity, and most guests choose to make it 'toasty'. The house is all-electric with washing machine, tumble drier etc.. My bill works out at about 75 pounds per month, averaged over the 30 weeks. I am happy with that, though I'm always open to advice for reducing costs (hence this thread).

I don't want to drain down the system because there's always the chance of a last-minute booking, so I want the house easy to get up and running again, and kept well aired.

Pincher

Don't mind me. I like to cover my bases with failure scenarios.

It is just inherently safer without the wet system.