Gas Fire or central heating?

Jimmy_Gunn

Hi all

I just want to heat my living room during the day, Now the obvious answer says to put my gas fire on, (one room, one heat source)

I'm a bit worried however, of how much it's likely to cost me though.
The gas fire is 15+ yrs old, the central heating boiler however, is less than three years old, and was a hugely expensive Worcester boiler.

Another smart answer would be to switch off all the radiators in all the other rooms except the living room, and put on the heating, but I don't fancy going into all the bedrooms, the bathroom, hallway and landing and dining room, switching off radiators, then turning them all back on again later, all that running around will heat me up enough without any heating at all.

I suppose the question I am asking is, would it be cheaper to heat the whole house with a modern efficient central heating system, or just heat the one room I require, but with an older gas fire.

HappyMJ

There will be many opinions on this subject as it has been discussed many times before. Personally, if you only need one room warm in a large house then I'd go for the inefficient gas fire rather than the central heating as the cheaper option. If you only had a small property with gas central heating then the central heating would be cheaper. I am not sure at what point the calculation evens out at. You would have to work that out for yourself.

oldskoo1

The best way is to do meter readings for each scenario.

I can offer you my experience, in my old house i use to keep my thermostat on 16 / 17c which would make the bedrooms 18c which is our comfortable temp. In the lounge it was too cold. We had a 82% efficient gas stove in there which would kick out serious heat.

The key was only having it on for bursts at a time and dont over heat. Keep it on low and only for short periods of time, overall we achieved a nice warm room but used less gas then simply turning the thermostat up to 20 / 21 which would heat all the rads.

But we didnt have TRV's so you could almost guess our fire solution would probably be cheaper.

Keep in mind, a 15 year old fire is likely to be a lot less efficient.

Some people who work from home like to offset their gas cost by running an oil filled radiator on and off throughout the day to just heat one room. This might work for you too.

Turning off all the rads is just a pain.

retiredin2011

I just heat the whole house because I hate opening the lounge door to go upstairs to the toilet or bedroom and get a blast of cold air then going into a cold toilet.

Plus if there is no heating in the other rooms they always seem to feel damp and cold even although it is a modern house.

But then I grew up with no central heating and the only source of heat in the whole house was a coal fire in the lounge.

I used to have to thaw out my clothes in the morning before I could put them on if I left them in my bedroom.

Now the whole house is a constant 22 deg C.

daffodil

I have gas central heating and if it is very cold I put the heating on just for an hour in the morning and perhaps another hour later on in the evening. We use the old gas fire in the living room in the evening, but we are very careful even with that. Fortunately I am a very active person over the years I have reduced my DDs to approx £60 per month. One word of warning though make sure you protect against getting a damp house - leave the heating on all day every few months, your health is important too.

jelliedeel

We've worked out on our prepayment gas meter it is cheaper for us to have central heating on all day than use the gas fire in the lounge. 8 hours a day on our prepay works out at about 2.40 ish which we don't think is to bad even over the month and we can budget for it.

MK55

I have a smart meter, and my gas fire costs me nearly twice as much than the heating for my entire house....

Jimmy_Gunn

Thank you so much for everyone who replied, Health wise, it's not a problem as I am in my early thirties, and this is only a temporary fix as I broke a couple of toes, so i'm off work for a few weeks,
I just felt it pointless heating the whole house while the wife and kids were all out, and i'm stuck in the living room watching endless repeats of Come dine with me.

I decided to give science a try, and conduct some experiments, which helped pass a few boring hours.

My results were - Having the gas fire on fully, made the gas meter spin almost as fast as the electric meter when i've got the tumble dryer/shower and all the lights on in the house.
I recorded the meter for two half hours with the fire on.

Then I decided to switch on the central heating - Now this varied, ALL of the radiators were cold, so in the first half hour, bringing all of the radiators in the house to full power, used as many points on the gas meter as the gas fire did in half an hour. However, once the heating was at optimum temperature, the gas meter slowed right down, as others have said before, it seems a lot cheaper to maintain a warm/hot radiator, than it does to constantly heat a cold one.

So in conclusion to that part of the test, after the initial start up of the central heating, keeping the heating on in the whole house (three double bedrooms, two reception rooms, hallway, upstairs landing, bathroom etc) DID in fact cost less than running the gas fire.

I wouldn't say i'm massively green, but I do not like waste, and heating the whole house just to keep my toes warm in the living room IS a complete waste.
So I HAVE conceded in turning the other radiators in the house down to a number 2, which in turn, saved buckets more points per hour on the gas meter, So i'm nice and toasty in the living room writing this, whilst the rest of the house is cooler (But not cold)

So in conclusion to all of that, I am affectively running one radiator rather than one gas fire, and what a difference, I do not know the savings I am making in ££££ But my gas meter is barely moving now, Happy days.

retiredin2011

I have decided, because we are in all day, and are a pair of cold OAPs, to leave the heating on for 24 hours a day, with a daytime temp of 22/23 degrees C and a night time temperature of 17 degrees C, I turn the thermostat down when I go to my bed.

This has resulted in a nice cosy house with no sudden change of temperatures between different rooms and not waking up in the morning to a cold house when the heating was off during the night.

And has it used more gas than when the heating was off during the night and turned off when we went out and came back to a cold house?

Yes it has.

But it is worth it.

reddleman

I did a bit of a test and worked out that the gas fire on minimum on it's own costs 9p/hour to run and the central heating 50p/hour on a lowish setting.

oldskoo1

Good results here

Setting the TRV's to 2 is quite a good idea anyway. 2 normally represents around 17 - 19c. Calibration might be off on some TRV's but it's a good setting for bedrooms.

Older open gas fires will chew through gas. Only the newer glass fronted ones can compete.

Good to see someone measuring their overnight usage and concluding it is more expensive. My final set up is to keep the CH on all day as i work from home. From 6am to 10:30pm. Thermostat gives out 18c heat morning and evening and goes down to 16c in the day as the outside temperature rises. Being south facing it gains some heat that way too.

Overnight it is set to off as we don't notice it but through winter i think i will have it ticking over at 12c overnight when it's consistently < 0c.

This is still more expensive than having it timed morning and evening, but only just. In the region of £10 extra on gas per month. On timed i freeze and feel really uncomfortable.

Having my non-condensing boiler put out 80c water, the rads retain some warmth after the CH clicks off plus the TRV's at 2 shut off the radiators quicker so it seems the most efficient use of my heating system.

One of the best things i recommend is trying to reduce drafts from doors, windows and skirting.