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

becksfaz

macman wrote: »

If you are in debit by £133 at present then your DD is set far too low, you should have some credit (say £150+) at the start of winter.

My DD is £80 for gas. I had little credit as I switched energy suppliers 21st sept.

becksfaz

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 and there is a draft from the front door. I have put a thick curtain up over the inside of the door to help with the draft. If I put the thermostat on 18 then the system never reaches 18 quite simply because the hall is never at that temperature. So I have it set to 15. When it says that the temperature is reached in the hall it feels warm enough in the other rooms to not to have to wear any cardigans or jumpers, so I know that it is higher in other rooms. I haven't checked to see what the temperature actually is in the other rooms.
HTH.

Do you suggest lowering my thermostat in the hall then too? Hall feels cool, yet themometer in lounge at present says 22 or should I put both radiators on in the hall to help keep that temperature up?

becksfaz

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. If the thermostat can never get to 18 then it's on anyway.
I don't understand this?

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

It was my previous understanding that with the house temp dropping lower (with heating on timed) then the boiler will be on longer to bring it back up to temperature.

becksfaz

Cardew wrote: »

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)

Think this happens to me - babies room generally a bit on the chilly side and it's a box room

Cardew

becksfaz wrote: »

It was my previous understanding that with the house temp dropping lower (with heating on timed) then the boiler will be on longer to bring it back up to temperature.

It might take longer, but it will cost a lot less.

The same explanation as given many times on MSE.

If you were to leave the house for, say, 2 years, would you leave the heating on 24/7 because it would be cheaper?(as it takes longer to heat up house when you got back)

How about 1 year? A month? A week? A day? a hour? All answers should be exactly the same answer as you would give for 2 years - The same principle applies in all cases - the longer the boiler is off the lower the bill.

macman

becksfaz wrote: »

It was my previous understanding that with the house temp dropping lower (with heating on timed) then the boiler will be on longer to bring it back up to temperature.

Yes, the bigger the temp differential, the longer it will take to bring it back up. But that does not mean that it's cheaper to leave it on 24/7!
Would you leave your car running 24/7 in order to keep it at temp rather than starting from cold? Do you keep your kettle boiling all the time to bring it to the boil quicker? There's no difference.
Leaving it on constant may be more convenient, but it is certainly not cheaper, unless your house has zero heat loss. Basic thermodynamics.
Put all the TRV's on full, set the room 'stat to around 20 or 21C, then adjust zonal temps using the TRV's if some areas too warm.
If you've got a rad off in the hall, then it'll never reach the set temp on the room stat, and the other rooms will all be too hot, as the boiler will run constantly in response to the room 'stat calling for heat.

becksfaz

Right.... OK. I've been thinking about experiementing with the timer thing.... Hubby gets up for work 6.30am and I leave to take youngest to pre-school at 8.30am so was thinking 6-8am in a morning?
Many of you have your heating coming on in the evening at about 5.30pm, I pick my son up from pre-school at 3pm.
Was thinking of having 3-7pm in the evening. I'm prepared to cuddle up with a duvet on sofa once kids are in bed. How does this sound? How long should I run my 'experiment' for to be able to notice reductions - a week?

becksfaz

Also if I get cold during the day was thinking I could put fire on for a bit. Surely fire will be cheaper than central heating.

macman

At present it's on 24 hours a day. Just switching it off between say 10pm and 6am will reduce that by 8 hours: 33% saving.

becksfaz

Well heating was off last night from 9pm when we went to bed and came on at 6am this morning - didn't notice a thing snuggled up in the duvet (or really a significant difference when baby got up at 3am).
However, I feel that I now have another problem.... Oh dear. Rads have never really got hot when had heating on 18 on constant yet this morning they were all RED hot.
Heating came on at 6am and when I got up at 7.15am, house was absolutely scorching. Now on some rads we have trv's - in our room set to 2 (my understanding 18) but it was roasting - I guesss this is broken??? Along with the one in my en-suite thats turned right down and also still gets red hot??
All other rads just have a dial with a + and - on (they look quite old) and all these are set below half, yet they were all roasting too! House is like a sauna. Boiler was still going so I to knock thermostat down and I didn't want anymore heat. Advice?
I've just looked on ebay to see if I can get trv's so I can put them on my + and - and can get 5 for £40 - is this about right?