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

k_man

luvchocolate said:

Chrysalis said:

Most of the answers seem common sense, but the cling film got my interest, I have really draughty windows which my landlord is never going to fix.

For that reason I dont really use heating because it all just escapes.

In winter I put clear tape round the opening of draughty windows

I thought that was just me!

orrery

gpr1 said:

The thermostat for rest of house( aside from kitchen diner) is located in hallway just inside front door.

It is a good compromise. The lounge is avoided because people commonly have some other form of heating in there - I have a log burner, my Mum has a coal effect gas fire etc. Using any other form of heating if the thermostat were in the lounge would likely shut the whole house heating off.

You might wish to try slightly restricting the flow to the rad in the hall. This  keeps the hall relatively cool until all the other rooms come up to temperature and their radiator valves start to restrict their flow. At that point the hall rad shoots up to temperature and the system then shuts down. This has the effect of making sure that all other rooms can achieve their target temperature before the system shuts down.

Petriix

orrery said:

gpr1 said:

The thermostat for rest of house( aside from kitchen diner) is located in hallway just inside front door.

It is a good compromise. The lounge is avoided because people commonly have some other form of heating in there - I have a log burner, my Mum has a coal effect gas fire etc. Using any other form of heating if the thermostat were in the lounge would likely shut the whole house heating off.

You might wish to try slightly restricting the flow to the rad in the hall. This  keeps the hall relatively cool until all the other rooms come up to temperature and their radiator valves start to restrict their flow. At that point the hall rad shoots up to temperature and the system then shuts down. This has the effect of making sure that all other rooms can achieve their target temperature before the system shuts down.

On the other hand, why waste energy heating the rest of the house at all if the log burner is heating the lounge?

richardc1983

Petriix said:

orrery said:

gpr1 said:

The thermostat for rest of house( aside from kitchen diner) is located in hallway just inside front door.

It is a good compromise. The lounge is avoided because people commonly have some other form of heating in there - I have a log burner, my Mum has a coal effect gas fire etc. Using any other form of heating if the thermostat were in the lounge would likely shut the whole house heating off.

You might wish to try slightly restricting the flow to the rad in the hall. This  keeps the hall relatively cool until all the other rooms come up to temperature and their radiator valves start to restrict their flow. At that point the hall rad shoots up to temperature and the system then shuts down. This has the effect of making sure that all other rooms can achieve their target temperature before the system shuts down.

On the other hand, why waste energy heating the rest of the house at all if the log burner is heating the lounge?

Because not everyone sits in one room maybe?

Ultrasonic

richardc1983 said:

Petriix said:

orrery said:

gpr1 said:

The thermostat for rest of house( aside from kitchen diner) is located in hallway just inside front door.

It is a good compromise. The lounge is avoided because people commonly have some other form of heating in there - I have a log burner, my Mum has a coal effect gas fire etc. Using any other form of heating if the thermostat were in the lounge would likely shut the whole house heating off.

You might wish to try slightly restricting the flow to the rad in the hall. This  keeps the hall relatively cool until all the other rooms come up to temperature and their radiator valves start to restrict their flow. At that point the hall rad shoots up to temperature and the system then shuts down. This has the effect of making sure that all other rooms can achieve their target temperature before the system shuts down.

On the other hand, why waste energy heating the rest of the house at all if the log burner is heating the lounge?

Because not everyone sits in one room maybe?

Increasingly it's becoming sensible for people to do so more often in winter...

I'm fortunate to have a wireless thermostat that I can move where I want, but it's usually in my lounge.

orrery

Petriix said:

On the other hand, why waste energy heating the rest of the house at all if the log burner is heating the lounge?

Well, I was simply answering the question as to why you'd have the thermostat in the hall, but if you want the £10 argument ...

My Mum sits in her lounge, gets a bit cold and lights her coal effect gas fire (it really doesn't have a low setting, just high, very high and stupidly high). If her thermostat were in her lounge it would shut down the whole house while the lounge becomes a sauna, and her bedroom and bathroom would be cold when she went to bed.

My log burner (a small one): the same as above. The output is rated at 5kW (more than is needed to heat the whole house), so if the doors are closed then I have a sauna again, so the doors stay open, which suppresses the heating in the rest of the house. I don't put any more wood on after 9pm, so by the time I go to bed the c/h is ramping up again.

Petriix

orrery said:

Petriix said:

On the other hand, why waste energy heating the rest of the house at all if the log burner is heating the lounge?

Well, I was simply answering the question as to why you'd have the thermostat in the hall, but if you want the £10 argument ...

My Mum sits in her lounge, gets a bit cold and lights her coal effect gas fire (it really doesn't have a low setting, just high, very high and stupidly high). If her thermostat were in her lounge it would shut down the whole house while the lounge becomes a sauna, and her bedroom and bathroom would be cold when she went to bed.

My log burner (a small one): the same as above. The output is rated at 5kW (more than is needed to heat the whole house), so if the doors are closed then I have a sauna again, so the doors stay open, which suppresses the heating in the rest of the house. I don't put any more wood on after 9pm, so by the time I go to bed the c/h is ramping up again.

With my wood burner it's possible to shut it right down so that it's just gently heating the room. With a gas fire it's fairly trivial to just turn it off once you're warm enough, then turn it back on when you get cold again.

It makes sense to open the doors to disperse the heat a short while before bed, and maybe a quick blast of the central heating (making sure that the radiators are off in the rooms you don't want to heat). But otherwise you can turn the heating right down and hide out in the living room with the door shut 

orrery

Petriix said:

With my wood burner it's possible to shut it right down so that it's just gently heating the room. .... With a gas fire it's fairly trivial to just turn it off once you're warm enough, then turn it back on when you get cold again.

If I choke the wood burner down by that amount then the flu temperature falls down below the clean band, and the gas fire isn't that easy to turn off and on when you're 97. All interesting stuff, but tangential to the explanation as to why there are often reasons to have the thermostat in the hall.

limecc

I just read the mythbusting guide and don't see it mentioned that to get a condensing boiler to actually condense there should be a wide temperature differential between the flow out of the boiler and the return to the boiler. Otherwise any A+ rating is lost and your boiler will have the efficiency of a gas guzzling back boiler of old.

In practice this means turning the boiler temperature all the way up to max (72 degC or more) and balancing your radiators. To balance the radiators the TRV valves should temporarily be set to max and you adjust the lockshield valve (opposite end to TRV) so they all heat up at the same rate and the temperature differential across the radiator set to 12 degC. It helped me that I had a cheap temperature gun purchased from Lidl. The aim is to get the boiler return 20 degC lower, it needs to be no higher than 55 degC or there's no condensing.

I won't post any links, there's plenty of advice and guides via Google and they all say the same thing.

QrizB

limecc said:

I just read the mythbusting guide and don't see it mentioned that to get a condensing boiler to actually condense there should be a wide temperature differential between the flow out of the boiler and the return to the boiler.

Why, exactly?

If the return temperture is 50C, for example, what difference does it make if the flow temperature is 55C or 75C?