What boiler thermostat setting?

oldskoo1

I have a non condensing ideal classic boiler and I'm wondering what I should set the thermostat to.

In my old house the potterton was set to max.

I'm wondering what setting would be best for cost comfort balance. The rads currently are very hot on setting 5 of 6. I assume 6 uses the most gas but 4 might be adequate to deliver at least 70c to the cylinder for reasonable hot water heat up times.

Would 4 save me money or would 6 be better as it heats up quicker? I heard non condensing boilers are cheaper on max. Is this true?

Ectophile

If it's a modern condensing boiler, then don't set it any hotter than you need to. Ideally, the return temperature should be below 55C.

southcoastrgi

:wall: sometimes i really wonder if people read these posts

tom15387202

oldskoo1 wrote: »

I have a non condensing...

Ectophile wrote: »

If it's a modern condensing...

I did a chuckle

Ectophile

southcoastrgi wrote: »

:wall: sometimes i really wonder if people read these posts

Obviously not :embarasse. I must have read it as "new", rather than "non".

Ken68

Hi Oldskool...mine is Ideal RS 450 Mexico, 14 year old set to 4.5. O.K... you could say Ideal. Warms up in an hour after being off all day. 12 cu. ft units per week (380 kwh) at this time of year.

oldskoo1

Thanks

Think I will have to run my own tests. Think it needs to stay above setting 4 to deliver at least 70c to the cylinder which expects 60c within 1 hour and 210l

That's accounting for a wooly stat

Just can't help thinking heating is to circa 77c is too hot especially to the touch and wasting gas. I'm sure there is about a 6c drop when it gets to the first rad.

Yolina

I've got a 22 year old Potterton and keeping it on 3 does the job in my place, but the temp indoors doesn't drop particularly low overnight (rarely below 14-15C and I normally only heat up to 18-19C anyway). Got a 210l tank too, and have set that at 50C which is plenty hot enough.

DTDfanBoy

Yolina wrote: »

I've got a 22 year old Potterton and keeping it on 3 does the job in my place, but the temp indoors doesn't drop particularly low overnight (rarely below 14-15C and I normally only heat up to 18-19C anyway). Got a 210l tank too, and have set that at 50C which is plenty hot enough.

Be aware that Legionnaires’ disease won't be killed off at 50c, you should really bump your tank up to 60c+

Yolina

Well after 14 years of having the HW tank at 50C and I'm still here :rotfl: I do run it at 60C once a week just in case. And I don't know if it makes a difference, but being in a flat, the water for the HW tank comes directly from the mains rather than a separate cold water tank.

Ben84

In an attempt to make my heating work better I turned mine up to maximum and figured I'd live with the extra gas use. Well, the heating did work a lot better and I didn't actually think the gas use was noticeably different. About the same as it had ever been in winter.

I keep track of gas use with weekly meter readings. Doesn't answer questions about specific actions or appliances, but I do at least get to monitor total spending and that makes me more confident to change settings on the boiler, because I won't be waiting until next quarterly bill to discover if I've accidentally made it burn vast amounts of gas.