Heat whole house or one room?

butler_helen

We have a lodger who seems to "advance" our heating all the time he is in which is all the time except mon-fri 9-5.

This heats the whole house pointlessly as we are often out and about and he sits in his room.

I can't work out if its cheaper to heat the whole house this way (gas central heating) or to ask hm to use his electric heater and just heat his room.

We have 7 rads, three are off so just running 4 and the thermostat is set to 26 as otherwise it never kicks in. Someone decided to place it in the warmest part of the house :rotfl:

Any help or pointers in working this out would be amazing as its driving me nuts trying to think it through - must be baby brain

Edit: we otherwise have the heating on 7-8:30 and 6-7:30pm every day.

[Deleted User]

have stats fitted to each rad might be an idea,an engineer will probably charge around £30 per rad,but in your case it may pay for itself

Bob_the_Saver

Get a new lodger.

Pincher

It's up to you what you want to offer, and up to the lodger what he will accept. There are no rules other than the ones you agree on between yourselves.

For my house, council tax is £2,400, water £800 no-meter, gas £1,300 and electricity £800. SkyTV, Landline and broadband bring annual basic outgoings to about £6,000, ignoring mortgage.

I would say the electricity would be £600 instead of £800, and gas £900 instead of £1,300 if I didn't have the lodgers. So for £600 overhead, I get the bills paid for. On top of which, I get to enjoy a nice 20 degrees house in winter.

To be fair, my house is now quite well insulated, and the condensing boiler actually condenses by maintaining 20 degrees using low flame. If you have a house that leaks heat like a sieve, then the rent won't even cover the gas bill.

butler_helen

Well I think he would be fine if I told/askedhim to just heat his room on days when he is in alone. He's really nice and easy going, albeit naturally colder than we are.

We have trvs on the downstairs rads but not upstairs, I might do the following;

Living room/dining room - lowest setting
Kitchen - no rad
Bathroom - off (until we get our new towel rail)
Upstairs - all off bar his.

We don't sit in the upstairs rooms; just sleep in them and we like them cold.

I take it gas it still cheaper to run all day than an electric heater?

(btw he adds nothing to other bills, water is fixed, tv/broadband fixed, council tax fixed, electricity adds very little, he has no car, no extra fridge, odd bits of washing... Doesn't even use the dishwasher and rarely cooks. So of his £350 a month c. £50 is gas/electricity, the rest is our renovation/baby fund).

butler_helen

P.s our house is a "sieve" ... But we are working on it! The lodger has the warmest room we have the coldest, followed by the living room. However after a while days heating it does get toasty warm... As does the atmosphere I suspect

HappyMJ

butler_helen wrote: »

Well I think he would be fine if I told/askedhim to just heat his room on days when he is in alone. He's really nice and easy going, albeit naturally colder than we are.

We have trvs on the downstairs rads but not upstairs, I might do the following;

Living room/dining room - lowest setting
Kitchen - no rad
Bathroom - off (until we get our new towel rail)
Upstairs - all off bar his.

We don't sit in the upstairs rooms; just sleep in them and we like them cold.

I take it gas it still cheaper to run all day than an electric heater?

(btw he adds nothing to other bills, water is fixed, tv/broadband fixed, council tax fixed, electricity adds very little, he has no car, no extra fridge, odd bits of washing... Doesn't even use the dishwasher and rarely cooks. So of his £350 a month c. £50 is gas/electricity, the rest is our renovation/baby fund).

It's cheaper to heat a small room by electricity as opposed to the whole place by gas...but the bathroom will be cold...the lounge will be cool. You'll then need to put the gas heating on for a bit longer to get the rooms back up to temperature.

You could compromise and put the heating on low throughout the house and he can use an electric heater to add a bit extra heat to his room.

PasturesNew

When I was in charge of the heating, I'd do the bare minimum of 2 hours/evening, then get under a blanket while the room got colder. Since then I've been lucky enough to have had "heating included when we have it on" deals - and I was amazed that many people seem to have their heating on 5-10pm .... and I LOVED it. What this taught me is that heating up for the 2 hours (to temperature) is OK, but adding in that extra hour really made a 10-fold difference to the overall feeling of warmth/luxriousness - and the heat held.

Maybe you could try extending the evening sessions a bit. If he knows it's coming on "soon" and will be lovely and toasty he might not bother to advance it.

Also, by the looks of your timing, he's unlikely to feel any benefit of that heating. He's probably up and out before it's warmed up in the morning - and comes in to a cold house. How about setting the evening heating to 5-8 instead? And the morning to 6.30?

MillicentBystander

Make him leave the thermostat alone and heat his room by electric. Has to be cheaper than heating a whole house so one room is toasty. And, yes, i know electric is far more expensive than gas but it is also far more efficient!

butler_helen

PasturesNew wrote: »

When I was in charge of the heating, I'd do the bare minimum of 2 hours/evening, then get under a blanket while the room got colder. Since then I've been lucky enough to have had "heating included when we have it on" deals - and I was amazed that many people seem to have their heating on 5-10pm .... and I LOVED it. What this taught me is that heating up for the 2 hours (to temperature) is OK, but adding in that extra hour really made a 10-fold difference to the overall feeling of warmth/luxriousness - and the heat held.

Maybe you could try extending the evening sessions a bit. If he knows it's coming on "soon" and will be lovely and toasty he might not bother to advance it.

Also, by the looks of your timing, he's unlikely to feel any benefit of that heating. He's probably up and out before it's warmed up in the morning - and comes in to a cold house. How about setting the evening heating to 5-8 instead? And the morning to 6.30?

I think our heating is set to Suit him... I should expand that he leaves at 9ish and gets back at 6ish... I assume he works flexibly as his job is 9-5.

I don't mind paying for heat, I mind paying to waste heat. I will ask him not to advance it, add an hour in the evenings use his electric heater and take readings to see the effect.

I'm hoping to switch it off soon, but it's still rather cold even for me!