how quickly does your house heat up

googler

Ours never has to 'heat up' because we don't let it get cold in the first place.

The boiler is on 24/7, the room temps are controlled by TRVs, and when we switched to 24/7 operation, having previously had the heating on for a couple of hours in the morning, and back on in the evening, we noticed a drastic reduction in gas usage. It's far more efficient, in my view, to leave it running all the time, even if there's nobody home.

justjohn

googler wrote: »

Ours never has to 'heat up' because we don't let it get cold in the first place.

The boiler is on 24/7, the room temps are controlled by TRVs, and when we switched to 24/7 operation, having previously had the heating on for a couple of hours in the morning, and back on in the evening, we noticed a drastic reduction in gas usage. It's far more efficient, in my view, to leave it running all the time, even if there's nobody home.

Are you well insulated?

I assume this would not work in a badly insulated house due to heat loss.

HappyMJ

googler wrote: »

Ours never has to 'heat up' because we don't let it get cold in the first place.

The boiler is on 24/7, the room temps are controlled by TRVs, and when we switched to 24/7 operation, having previously had the heating on for a couple of hours in the morning, and back on in the evening, we noticed a drastic reduction in gas usage. It's far more efficient, in my view, to leave it running all the time, even if there's nobody home.

So you are saying if I go away on holiday for 2 weeks then leave the heating on whilst nobody's home? That does not sound like it would ever be cheaper to me. At £5 a day gas usage I could save £70 by turning the heating off. On my return it costs £5 to reheat the house having the heating on for 6 hours on it's maximum setting heating house from 4 degrees (yes it gets that cold) to 21 degrees then another £5 to maintain the heat for the next 24 hour period. Same method works during the middle of the day if I'm at work. It costs £1.60 to maintain the heat for 8 hours but if I turn it off during a weekday then it takes less than 1 hour of the boiler in constant use (costing about 80p) to reheat back to 21 degrees. Over the 8 hour perod the savings are high at 50%...over a 24 hour period the savings are 20% and over a week with the boiler on all day on the weekend then the bill savings as shown on the bill are 13%.

northernsoul

From what i remember i think (on the Vaillant diagnostics F40&F41) they are flow about 68C and return 57C. Though dont fully trust these as using my infra-red temp raygun (!), even with black tape on the pipe it says its 5-10C lower than the boiler says, especially on the return. Even by my hand i think i can tell that the return is much cooler than the flow compared to the Vaillant temps. The dial is at 2pm and it can go to from 7 am to 5pm. (trying to keep return to 55 or below to condense)
My lounge rad is 9455btu output and apart from 50mm kingspan on the attic ceiling and double glazing no other insulation.
i consider it a cold house, partly because with the house being on an hillside the front of the house is 6 foot higher than the pavement and the floor is always cold. Thinking of going under the floor and looking for draughts through the wall and maybe insulate under the floorboards. Will not help much the rest of the house though. Got a (cold) cellar as well!
Already pay £60 elect and £60 gas. Used 21000kWh of gas last year and using more this year!
May have to bite the bullet and turn my boiler to near max or max.
Thanks

googler

justjohn wrote: »

Are you well insulated?

I assume this would not work in a badly insulated house due to heat loss.

The walls are double-skin brick construction, I've seen one room stripped of some plasterboard, and there's a standard fibre/foil insulation layer between the plasterboard and the inner brick layer.

The loft has insulation to the depth of the joists, tiled roof with interior felt between the roof timbers.

Does that qualify as 'well insulated', in your book?

justjohn

googler wrote: »

The walls are double-skin brick construction, I've seen one room stripped of some plasterboard, and there's a standard fibre/foil insulation layer between the plasterboard and the inner brick layer.

The loft has insulation to the depth of the joists, tiled roof with interior felt between the roof timbers.

Does that qualify as 'well insulated', in your book?

dono lol Its more than me lol ...brick and lathe & plaster, that's it (except attic)...lol

heating this house 24/7 just would not work..lol

googler

HappyMJ wrote: »

So you are saying if I go away on holiday for 2 weeks then leave the heating on whilst nobody's home? That does not sound like it would ever be cheaper to me.

That sorta depends on how many times you go away for long periods, surely?

However, I haven't worked it out to the detail of daily rates, or how many hours it takes to heat it from freezing point up to 20 degrees, merely noted that going from a daily 6am-8am and 5pm-11pm timed rotation to 24/7 operation shaved some £250-300 off the annual gas bill, so in the long run, I suggest that this approach is cheaper.

Also, I have stuff in various rooms that I don't want subjected to extremes of low temp, too. Even when I'm away, I want the temperature to stay around the liveable mark, not drop to 2 or 3 degrees or worse. More security against burst pipes, too.

justjohn

northernsoul wrote: »

Already pay £60 elect and £60 gas. Used 21000kWh of gas last year and using more this year!
May have to bite the bullet and turn my boiler to near max or max.
Thanks

Think yourself lucky, used aprox 2200L heating oil since November.(got about 800l left)

that cost 60-70p per litre lol

Mr_Ted

:rotfl:
Someones got the ball of string out again :eek:



These sorts of threads are "Discussions" not Moneysaving or DiY

northernsoul

justjohn - 2200lts at 65p av - ouch
Was getting worried about my 40% extra gas usage (so far this year) on my Direct Debit renewal!