Heating the house to prevent burst pipes?

Jadedwords

Hello,

Apologies for the potentially silly question, but we're a young couple just out of University living in a house without inclusive bills for the first time. We're struggling for money so we haven't had the heating on yet, and are using hot water bottles and blankets etc. (We live in the North East, so it is cold!)

I know in the winter you are supposed to have heating on a little, in order to prevent your pipes from bursting. How long, and at what times, are we supposed to have it on? We have no thermostat, but we have a timer. Would say, one hour in the morning each day stop it happening, or does it need to be on constantly if the temperature were below freezing? Also, when should we start putting it on? Should we wait until the weather gets colder, or is now a good time? We're going on holiday next week (competition win) and I wouldn't want to come back to burst pipes, but we have no clue whether it is cold enough to take preventative measures yet, or whether it's really a depth of snowy winter type thing.

Thanks for anyone's advice

oldskoo1

I run the heating 24/7 for comfort and to prevent burst pipes when really cold. Normally 16c overnight and 18c in the day. It sort of stuck after my youngest was born, hospital recommended 18c warmth and it was a freezing winter. Bills were more but not as much as i expected.

In the past i've just had it on timed, say 2 hours in the morning, 6am to 8am and then from 5pm to 11pm. I've never suffered a burst.

However, i know a few people who have. Mainly people who have gone away from the christmas holidays and left the heating off.

I would guess it needs to be colder than -5, possibly even -10 to be in the risk zone. The house should naturally retain a little heat and obviously with pipes in doors and in between walls it needs to be a little colder than zero to be at risk.

I dont know whether it's sufficient to just have 2 timed zones, as i say, in the past i've been fine. But wracking my brains i can't remember the last time it got down to -15c apart from the previous few winters.

I would probably stick it on 10c when you aren't there, i assume your boiler has a frost protection thermostat built in or externally?

ilikewatch

Obviously for pipes to freeze and burst the temperature of the pipes has to drop to zero or below, for internal temperatures to drop so low the outside temperature would normally be much lower.
The first thing I would do is to ensure that any pipes that are particularly exposed to the cold are well protected - if they're in the loft make sure that pipes are under any insulation, or well lagged. If any external walls of your house are a single skin of bricks, then make sure that pipes in these rooms are well protected.
I would also try to arrange to get a thermostat installed to provide frost protection - a thermostat can be bought for as little as £30 and can often be safely fitted by a competent DIYer - if you rent it's probably worth checking with your landlord. Most thermostats automatically switch on the heating when temperatures drop below around 5 degrees.
Last year both my water supplies froze solid inside the house, and the only damage caused was to the 2 water meters which both burst, but as they are outside didn't really worry me too much!

Skinto_7

Generally the temperature would have to be constantly below 0 degrees for at least a few days before your pipes would burst.

The way the weather is just now, you shouldnt be at any risk of burst pipes, however having it on for an hour each morning wont do any harm, and will get the water moving through the system.

Unless the weather takes a major nose dive, your system will be fine switched off during your holiday.

macman

Proper lagging of the pipes costs next to nothing, and will greatly reduce the chance of a burst, which occurs in a thaw, not a freeze.
If you have a condensing boiler, with an external condensate pipe, that is where you have the greatest chance of a freeze up-and that would wipe out any protection from a boiler frost stat.

WestonDave

Whilst I understand where you are coming from, you will need to be very careful about condensation and damp if you leave the house unheated. Potentially this could do plenty of damage in itself. Just by living in the house, you will be creating moisture in the air (breathing, cooking, showering etc). Colder air becomes saturated far more easily than warm air, and moist near saturated air coming into contact with a cold surface will very quickly lead to condensation, that in turn starts to create conditions for mould to grow on surfaces, which once established takes some getting rid of and covering over.

What this means in practice is that the lower you have the temperature in the house, the more you need to ventilate it (i.e. open windows) in order to get rid of the increasingly moist air inside.

My suspicion is that you are far more likely to be coming back on here asking how to get rid of black mould growing on the walls, than you are to be asking how to fix a burst pipe!

WLM21

I left my house for 4 weeks last winter, so to be safe set the timer to come on for 15mins every hour all day and night, with temperature control button on the lowest setting.
At least this meant warm water going through all the pipes, which prevented any frozen pipes, which could then cause burst pipe.
The cost of a burst pipe as well as the inconvenience factor would have Ben far worse than the gas I paid for.
Regards from a fellow NE resident (Whitley Bay)

SuzieSue

I know someone who is a landlord and his landlord's insurance policy says the following:

1. If the Buildings as specified in the Schedule will be left

Unoccupied or Tenants will be away from the Property

for 14 days or more during the period 1st November to

31st March You must immediately ensure that the gas and

water system must be turned off and drained at the mains

or any heating system in place must be set at a continuous

minimum temperature of 14 degrees celsius.

Obviously not all policies are the same so it might be worth checking with your landlord as if you do have a burst pipe and his insurance will not pay out then he could come after you for the money if you are considered to be negligent. However, the fact that there is no thermostat is a problem and could possibly be used as a defence, although I wouldn't want to rely on it.

Biggles

Get a cheap max/min thermometer and experiment.

It's surprising how cold the interior of a house gets with no heating at all.

I'd go for three or four half-hour bursts during the day. If, during the colder weather, the room temperature drops too low, increase the number of bursts (or length of them if your timer won't do more bursts). You don't want the room temperature to drop below 10°C, or peripheral areas (like loft and pipes under the floor) will be too close to freezing point.

SuzieSue

Biggles wrote: »

Get a cheap max/min thermometer and experiment.

It's surprising how cold the interior of a house gets with no heating at all.

I'd go for three or four half-hour bursts during the day. If, during the colder weather, the room temperature drops too low, increase the number of bursts (or length of them if your timer won't do more bursts). You don't want the room temperature to drop below 10°C, or peripheral areas (like loft and pipes under the floor) will be too close to freezing point.

Good advice.

Jaynne

Its going to have to get a lot colder to have any risk of the pipes bursting, look for temps overnight below 2 or 3 degrees and then make sure you've had the heating on for an hour or so in the evening or a couple of bursts of half an hour.

You're really at risk overnight as during the day you run taps, toilets etc and running water takes lower temperatures to freeze.