Gas CH bill sky high - Help is needed...

DevilsAdvocate1

becksfaz wrote: »

Thank you everyone, I know I've caused a little frustration to all you experts on here (with my different threads etc) but I really would like to thank you all for your help. I appreciate your advice. Decided to try it on a timer for a week from now and see how it goes. Question now is - what time to put the timer on?!?! Argh!

Ours comes on at 6:30am as my husband gets up for work at 7:00am. It then goes off at 7:30am just as I get up. We leave the house at 8:30am and I never feel cold in that hour. We are all dressed by 8:00am but I'm usually wearing a thin sleeveless top.

It then comes on at 5:30pm and currently goes off at 6:30pm. On very frosty cold days I will extend this by another hour. When we had the bad weather last year I did have it on constantly through the day for a week or so, because we were in all day and the house quickly got cold when it wasn't on. I still switched it off at night.

If I'm going to bath the children, then I will put the heating on half an hour before they go in the bath.

HTH.

jalexa

DevilsAdvocate1 wrote: »

My thermostat is also in the hall. The hall is the coldest room in my house because there is not a radiator in there

The CH system installer is an "idiot", but that is not uncommon. Well done for working out how to make the system work for you. If you own the property it may pay you to fit a programmable stat in your living room.

spinningsheep

It may even pay to fit one if you rent. As long as your landlord agrees, after all, it will benefit you by giving greater control over your CH system, and you may recoup the cost in saved gas in a very short period of time, and your LL will benefit from upgraded controls at no cost to them, so cannot see any reason why they would object. All boils down to how long you are planning on staying at the property. If you plan on moving in 6-12 months then forget about it.

HappyMJ

becksfaz wrote: »

Have you got the loft properly insulated to current standards (270m)? If not, that's the first thing to sort out, as it's the biggest source of heat loss.
I'm not sure - it's a rented house, how do I find out about this?
NB: from your earlier post: even a 2C increase requires a great deal of extra energy. Wisdom has it that turning your 'stat down just 1C can take 10% off your heating bill.
Can't turn it down lower than 18 - I think that's pretty low (it's lower than all of my friends) considering I've young children.
Stop running the CH on constant and switch it off at night-it's not necessary and is greatly increasing your consumption.
Won't the temperature get too low though in my children's bedrooms?
And won't the boiler have to work harder in the morning to bring the house temperature back up?

If you have set the thermostat to 18 and the lounge is 21 then there is something wrong...You may as well set it to 25 it won't cost any more. If the thermostat can never get to 18 then it's on anyway. The hall temperature might be able to reach 16 and that's why it's so much cheaper for you but as you say the house feels cold as it probably is 16 throughout the house and 16 is on the chilly side when you are sitting watching telly.

Use a mini oil filled radiator in the baby's room. I have an 800W one here. It uses about 400W per hour to maintain a cool temperature in the bedroom overnight. That costs about 5p per hour.

The boiler works no harder it's either on running at 24kW or it's off.

Cardew

HappyMJ wrote: »

If you have set the thermostat to 18 and the lounge is 21 then there is something wrong...You may as well set it to 25 it won't cost any more.

Exactly!

This is in fact exactly what I do!

My wall thermostat is an a large hall with a big staircase leading off and I don't have the radiators on in the hall. I simply turn the thermostat to maximum.

This of course means the pump is running all the time when the CH is on - but naturally I have it timed.

The temperature in each of the rooms is controlled by the TRVs and the boiler stops firing when the water in the system is at the temperature set on the boiler.

At any one time there could be three or more rooms in use, so there is no point for me in having the wall thermostat in a reception room, as that would determine how the CH operated - to the detriment of the occupants of other rooms.

i.e. if wall thermotat was in Lounge and room is up to the set temperature of, say 20C; this means the CH is off(pump not running and boiler not firing) If I go into my(cold) study the radiator will not produce any heat as CH is effectively off. The only solution is to crank up the thermostat in lounge(which is the same as I do in hall)

jalexa

Cardew wrote: »

as that would determine how the CH operated - to the detriment of the occupants of other rooms.

Just to clarify, my "idiot" remarks are not directed at those who understand how to make unheated hall stats work:D

DevilsAdvocate1

jalexa wrote: »

The CH system installer is an "idiot", but that is not uncommon. Well done for working out how to make the system work for you. If you own the property it may pay you to fit a programmable stat in your living room.

Actually, it is our fault in a way. When the house was built the thermostat was in the hall where there was a very small radiator. The hall is the size of a postage stamp. Anyway, a couple of years ago we had the garage converted into a room. The only wall space to fit a door into the conversion was where the tiny radiator was, so we had it removed. There is not really any wall space to put another radiator in as the hall is so small. The thermostat is on 5" of wall space next to the stairs. There is no other wall space.

Having said that, even when a radiator was there, the temperature in the hall was still always cold compared to the rest of the house.

Cardew

jalexa wrote: »

Just to clarify, my "idiot" remarks are not directed at those who understand how to make unheated hall stats work:D

Happy about that!;)

My point is that unless you live in a one room bedsit, there is no ideal place to site a thermostat - it is all a compromise.

Clearly the lounge is best for many people, but again if child wants to go to cold bedroom to do homework, play on X box etc you have the problem of getting heating back on when lounge is up to temp.

HappyMJ

becksfaz wrote: »

Yes the radiator does get hot all over but is hotter at the top than the bottom - most of my rads are.

Radiators hot at the top and cold at the bottom indicates to me your system is full of sludge and debris. This stuff falls to the bottom of the radiator and will block the flow of water through the bottom of the radiators directing the hot water through the top of the radiator and straight out again and not heating the room properly. A powerflush might be in order to clear out all this rubbish.

A properly designed system should have appropriate sized radiators to heat bedrooms to 18 and living rooms to 21. If it no longer does that you need someone in to look at it if you are not willing to fix it yourself.

jalexa

Cardew wrote: »

My point is that unless you live in a one room bedsit, there is no ideal place to site a thermostat - it is all a compromise.

Ah, that'll be why the house chills:cool: on the occasions the living room woodburner is lit.

A design problem to solve when time permits.