Turning down radiators (is it worth it?)

bilko99

We have trv's on all radiators including the ones in the living room , also in the living room on the opposite wall we have the thermostat.
Now say we have the radiator trv's set to 20 and the thermostat set to 21 so the boiler is on for the whole hour (when we press the boost button).
I have been turning the bedroom radiators down or off till 7pm .
If the system is pumping hot water through the system for the whole hour am i saving any money by turning the bed room radiators down/off ?
May i as well leave the bedroom radiators on 20 as the water is going round the system for the whole hour anyway?
Hope this question makes sense

macman

The wider open you have the TRV's, the more heat is being radiated and convected by the rads, so the more it costs (as that heat is lost continually through the structure of the house). Heat retained in the CH circuit is returned to the boiler and reduces the temp increase required-so less gas is burned.
You should not have a TRV in the same zone as the room 'stat.

bilko99

Thanks macman , we are stuck with the trv's in the same room but have to keep the thermostat a little bit higher so that the heat is confortable in the living room, but also to keep the rest of the house warm .
So i would save money by turning the bedroom radiators off or down during the day

Kiran

Just open the TRV all the way in the room with the thermostat. That will be the same as not having a TRV on that rad.

bilko99

Thanks Kiran , i will give that a go, but i was thinking that the living room will get to warm and then turn off the thermostat stopping the other radiators in the other rooms from staying on until them rooms are warm enough.

steppevos

bilko99 wrote: »

Thanks Kiran , i will give that a go, but i was thinking that the living room will get to warm and then turn off the thermostat stopping the other radiators in the other rooms from staying on until them rooms are warm enough.

If that would be the case, then your heating system would need balancing: on the opposite side of the radiator then where the tvr is, is another valve which can be opened further (anti-clockwise) or closed a bit further (clockwise) to encourage or reduce the flow of heating water through that specific radiator (this will at the same time have a little bit the opposite event on all the other radiators). If the other rooms stay too cold, then you could try to open these valves in those rooms further; only if they are fully open but this is still not enough then you could close the valve of living room radiator a bit (never close the living room radiator more than half).
This is quite an art and you may want to leave this job to a capable plumber if you don't feel confident to do this yourself.

jennifernil

Or you could turn the thermostat well up and let the TRVs control the temperature in each room.

That way, the boiler stat will control the running of the boiler, but the pump will run continuously as the room stat will not turn it off. This is considered inefficient these days.

But yes, you should turn right down the TRVs in rooms you are not using for the time you are not using them, that will save money. You would presumably not want the bedrooms at 20 degrees anyway?

If you do want to heat them in the evening, you can manually turn up the TRVs when required, or you can even buy programmable TRVs that you can set to different temperatures at different times.

bilko99

Thank you all, first i will have to sort the draught out coming from the loft hatch/ bathroom window and then i will check to see if i need to balance the hall radiator.

jonesjw

Putting the house thermostat to max and relying on the TRVs to control temperature is a very inefficient way of operating.
Much better to put the TRV to max in the room with the thermostat and set the thermostat accordingly.
For the remaining rooms, it is usually more efficient to not heat rooms you are not using.

cyclonebri1

There is a simple answer to the whole thing, any thermostat you turn down will reduce the heating demand in principle.

But, there is always a lead thermo, the 1 that governs the house temp, turn that down and you save.Iif a single room is hotter than you need but set to give a temp over the main house stat, then turn it down.