Heating Sources

Chenin

Does anyone have any ideas on ecomonical winter heating sources? I need to heat about 3 areas of the house so don't need to turn on the central heating.

cattie

Well, if your radiators have their own thermostatic controls, you can turn them off in the rooms you don't want heated & keep the doors to those rooms closed. This is what I do & I understand it to be an economic way of doing things. This way you are only heating the rooms/area's you want heated. If you haven't got individual controls on your radiators it'll probably pay you to get them fitted.

MATH

If you use TRV's remember to also use the regular room thermostat and do not turn off the radiator nearest to it.
TRV's turn off individual radiators when it is warm enough but do not send a message back to the boiler to stop it re-heating the water once demand from the radiators has ceased. Only a room thermostat does this.

cattie

This is the 2nd house I've lived in with trv's as you describe them, & neither has had wall thermostats. Both have had controls on the combi boiler for just how hot you want the hot water & radiators, so I tend to keep the tvr's on max setting in the rooms regularly used & alter the boiler setting gradually as the weather gets colder or (hotter). Maybe wall thermostats are only for other types of boiler? The systems in both this & my previous house have been new & up to date.

Chenin

Thanks for the advice on the trv's but in my case this wont work. I don't have any radiators in some the areas which I want to heat. I was looking for some type of portable thingy but I have small children so safety is an issue. Any ideas?

cattie

I know from past experience, in the cold dark days before I had central heating, that the Calor gas portable heaters are efficient & much cheaper to run than any electrical heating appliance. However, with young children & the issue of safety, this may not be suitable for you. The next best things would probably be either one of the thermostatically controlled electric convector heaters or portable radiators. Both are available with timers, which coupled with the thermostats, help keep the running costs down.

philc_2

Does anybody have any experience of the slimline flat panel electric heaters which are supposed to be fairly cheap to run?

I think the most powerful I've seen is about 800W and they seem excellent from a safety point of view (i.e. no vents or holes to cover up) and quite inobtrusive. For areas which need some extra heat they seem quite tempting.

Any experiences?

Phil

MATH

I should have made my earlier post clearer. If you had an old style central heating system and then 'bolted on' trv's later cranking up the room thermostat to full blast and letting the trv's do all the work will cost you money.

New systems with trv's at instalation are totally different and probably don't have or need a wall thermostat.

MATH

We stayed in a holiday cottage with slimline panel heaters. We left them on 24hrs/day and it wasn't toasty! They give off very gentle heat - in my opinion better for 'taking off the chill' or keeping a room warm, rather than heating one up.

philc_2

Thanks Man!

Yes, they often seem mentioned for 'background' heat so I guess as a bit of additional heat here and there they could be okay.

I guess most of them will be left on 24/7. That sounds quite appealing to me as I'm after something fairly bombproof for lodgers without having to worry about them costing a mint or if things are on or off all the time.

Phil

plumb1_2

I should have made my earlier post clearer. If you had an old style central heating system and then 'bolted on' trv's later cranking up the room thermostat to full blast and letting the trv's do all the work will cost you money.

New systems with trv's at instalation are totally different and probably don't have or need a wall thermostat.

Yes they do,as the room stat controls the pump,with just trv,s the pump will just keep running,taking heat out of the boiler and not letting the boiler stat do its job