Energy myth-busting: Is it cheaper to have heating on all day?

zebb

..by the way, also explains why my oil usage last year was lower. Nothing to do with my additional insulation attempts it seems.Talking of which, anyone have any experience of window quilts. We've an old property (listed unfortunately) and lose alot of heat through the windows.

maxmiler

zebb wrote: »

- after all 18 degrees in summer = no heating so why all this 20+ degrees in winter lark! There's none so weird as folk! I'm sitting here in a tee shirt and TOH wants the heating on!

An interesting comment. When I was working, in the summer I had to wear a fleece zipped up in summer as the majority of the staff wanted the aircon set very low. The room was freezing and I used to go outside to get warm.
When I said that there should be no need to ever alter it as it was designed to keep the temperature in the room constant, I just got laughed at.
I'm so glad that I no longer work with idiots.

wantanswers

zebb wrote: »

..by the way, also explains why my oil usage last year was lower. Nothing to do with my additional insulation attempts it seems.Talking of which, anyone have any experience of window quilts. We've an old property (listed unfortunately) and lose alot of heat through the windows.

Ah, so you heat by oil?

Cardew

jeepjunkie wrote: »

:think: I guess you could pay over £10k but I have an invoice here for the cost of a new 14kw EcoDan with installation for £4695ish inc vat... Not to bad really given the alternatives...

Carefully phrased I note. Did you pay that invoice? Could it have been a replacement ASHP?

Care to elaborate for the benefit of those posters who haven't seen your other posts on your installation.

Reading your post in isolation, wouldn't people think that an Ecodan 14kW ASHP CH system can be installed for £4,695ish inc VAT?

Notwithstanding you have deleted some of your posts, as I remember you paid something like £14,000 for your system.

In this post #21, I mentioned the sum of £14,000 and you did not demur and in fact thanked me for the post.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3553313

As I understand it you got an ASHP fitted this Spring(paying £14,000?)
and all over MSE you are singing the praises of ASHPs without having gone
through a winter.


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jeepjunkie
(19-10-2011), LittleVermin (20-10-2011)

victor2

maxmiler wrote: »

An interesting comment. When I was working, in the summer I had to wear a fleece zipped up in summer as the majority of the staff wanted the aircon set very low. The room was freezing and I used to go outside to get warm.
When I said that there should be no need to ever alter it as it was designed to keep the temperature in the room constant, I just got laughed at.
I'm so glad that I no longer work with idiots.

:rotfl:
Best thing we did when having new offices built some years back was to put the A/C controls in the secure computer room.
When staff complained about the temperature the standard answer from the IT department (who of course had access), was "I'll just go and adjust it." Procedure was to go into the computer room, wait 20 seconds and come out again. Staff were happy then...

zebb

wantanswers wrote: »

Ah, so you heat by oil?

Yup, and for those that do, may be interested in knowing that in summer I've calculated it costs £8 a week for hot water using oil and just £4 if I have the immersion on 24x7. May not be true for everyone but my tank is 15 metres away from boiler which may explain things. Effectively getting my summers HW for free now that I've switched the 10 kitchen downlighters to LED GU10s. But thats another story!

[Deleted User]

Cardew wrote: »

Carefully phrased I note. Did you pay that invoice? Could it have been a replacement ASHP?

Care to elaborate for the benefit of those posters who haven't seen your other posts on your installation.

Reading your post in isolation, wouldn't people think that an Ecodan 14kW ASHP CH system can be installed for £4,695ish inc VAT?

Notwithstanding you have deleted some of your posts, as I remember you paid something like £14,000 for your system.

In this post #21, I mentioned the sum of £14,000 and you did not demur and in fact thanked me for the post.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3553313

Yes I did pay that invoice. It is simply connected to existing tank/rads and is working well.

Regards the other amount yes an EcoDan was within that price but was the total amount for a huge amount of renovation work.

Out of date/misleading posts are removed to avoid confusion. When doing research what annoys me is results full of out of date info. So I do the courtesy...

macman

retiredin2011 wrote: »

My heating bill, not including hot water and cooking and gas pilot light is £340, 11,000 kWh approx and for the sake of £17 I would rather pay the 5% or whatever for comfort than get up during the night to go to the toilet and freeze my !!!! off.

The government gives us £20 Christmas bonus so I spend it on comfort.

The £200 heating allowance is going on internal heating, booze.:rotfl:

Absolutely your choice to do so-but don't delude yourself that it's only adding 5%. Your usage is already very low anyway, so hardly so critical either way.

oldskoo1

Anyone who has tested the 24/7 theory recently when the temperatures have been a bit higher around the 7-10c mark might get a shock when their bill arrives if we have prolonged periods of minus or close to freezing temperatures.

The difference in cost is more apparent when the outside temperature is lower.

Cardew

terry2 wrote: »

Well the original query the energy trust was replying too was probably wrong, what they should be comparing is the cost of having the heating on all the time at a constant comfortable lower temperature.

There have been lots of posts saying "heating on all the time" has to be more expensive. Well this would be true IF you kept the heating on with the same thermostat setting, but in fact you don't.

In my case (house built in the 60s with insulated walls and loft insulation and TRVs on radiators), I did lots of measurements of difference in temperatures (inside and out) compared with gas usage, for various conditions.

If I had the heating on twice a day then I needed to set the house thermostat at 20C to feel comfortable. If I left the thermostat at 20C and left the heating on all the time, then gas usage went up by 10% (BUT it took 48hrs for the house temperatures to stabilise before the usage was meaningful). However the house felt too hot at 20C 24hr. Dropping the temperature to 19C 24hr reduced the gas usage back to the original value; however the house still felt too hot. So I then tried 18C 24hr; in this state the gas usage was less than the original state (20C twice a day) and I still felt too hot. So I now run the house at 17C 24hr which still feels comfortable, and IS saving money.

So, being an experimental physicist and not a theoretician, I will continue to believe the measurements, ie it is NOT a myth: for many houses having the heating on all day with the thermostat turned down a few degrees WILL save you money, but note that after any change it will probably take the house some days to stabilise before you can check the usage.
Note that if you have an uninsulated house then this may well not be the case.

This is inevitably how any discussion on this subject ends up.

You say running 'the house at 17C 24hr which still feels comfortable, and IS saving money.' - over a comparison of the house being heated to 20C twice a day.

With respect, that is a meaningless statement without defining the period of time the spells of heating at 20C lasted.

Taking two extremes simply to illustrate the point; without doubt a constant 17C would be cheaper than two periods of 11 hours at 20C!!. On the other hand a constant 17C would be more expensive than two 30 minute periods at 20C.

Obviously at some point between 2 x 30 mins, and 2 x 11 hours the cost would be equal; but of course that point would only apply to your house at a specific outside temperature.

One further point, about comfortable temperatures. Personally I find it very difficult to accept that 17C is an acceptable temperature for sitting in a living room. That is a true 17C and not a setting on a wall thermostat. The recommended temperature is 21C

This article may be of interest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5372296.stm

24C - top range of comfort

21C - recommended living room temperature

Less than 20C - death risk begins

18C - recommended bedroom temperature

16C - resistance to respiratory diseases weakened

12C - more than two hours at this temperature raises
blood pressure and increases heart attack and stroke risk

5C - Significant risk of hypothermia


Source: West Midlands Public Health Observatory

Don't shoot the messenger - I just cut and pasted!! However there are plenty of links on the web that support 21C as the recommended living room temperature.

If my living room temperature was 17C I would be wrapped in a duvet!