I don't have a thermostat

ilovelondontown

Last winter we were hit with an astronomical Gas bill from Southern Electric of over £600 for 3 months :eek: - so hard hit by it, we are still paying it back.

Anyhow I wish to avoid a repeat issue this winter and have been makign additional monthly payments to the account to "top up" what is on the account so even if it is higher the shortfall won't be quite so crippling. I'm also going to cut back on when we turn the heating on etc, but eventually we wil have to give in and turn it on.

That all said, I'm still not sure of the reason why our bill was so high, but it has been suggested that it might be because we don't have a thermostat,- this is possible? the heating is either on or off. The only thing we do have is a Rad temp dial on the boiler from 1-5 which I presume isn't the same thing.

I've looked into getting a themostat put in and it'll cost over £200, not being 100% certain this is the issue, and not having spare cash to throw at something that might not help, I don't know what else to do to make sure our bills aren't so high.

Does any one have any advice on this? Or have I just been a consfusing waffle of information!? :rotfl:

ollski

It's certainly going to help, with no room thermostat your boiler will just run and run while the clock is calling for heat, it will just cut the flames in and out as it pumps hot water around the pipes. If you have a room thermostat it will cut the demand for heat completely when the area where it located reaches the temperature it's set to. If you set it fairly low ie 18 deg, it is likely to save you a fortune wheras if you set it tropical to a temperature your rads can't possibly acheive then your bill will remain eactly the same.

macman

£200? A basic room 'stat costs about £20. A decent digital programmer about £70. Plus fitting if you don't want to do it yourself.
Either way you'll get the cost back in one winter. It's crazy to have a CH system with no proper control.

ilovelondontown

Thank you both for confirming what I thought might be the case. Last winter it was cold and we quite often left the heating running for 12 hours in a day, it was eye watering when the bill came through!

I might need to look into this more by getting some quotes etc, as I want to deal with this before the cold truly sets in.

Really appreciate your responses.

ILLT

iammumtoone

over £200 :eek::eek:

I have the same issue as you - no thermostat and likewise am looking to try to reduce the bill this year. I have got someone coming next tuesday to quote for a wireless thermostat (as I think this will be cheaper than wired? But will check with him) I hope its not over £200 as I wont be able to afford it

Does the temp dial control on the boiler alter the radiator temperature then? I have never understood what thats for! So it would be more economical if I had that low? I have it on medium at the moment (thought it was a good compromise as I don't know what it is :rotfl:).

st999

The hotter the water circulating round the radiators the quicker the house heats up.

macman

The temp control on the boiler controls the temp of the water entering the CH flow pipe. It doesn't directly control the rad temp. Without TRV's or a room stat you have no local control whatsoever, which is incredibly wasteful, because you'd never want halls and bedrooms heated to the same temp as a lounge.

cherie1122

We've just had a new boiler installed and the Heating Engineer suggested a wireless thermostat as we only had controls on the radiators. It works really well.

The old system was either on or off, meaning we got too hot so we turned the heating off and on in an effort to keep warm but not too hot. The thermostat means we have a nice background heat and I'm hoping the bills will be a lot less this winter.

I hope you manage to find a way to get one installed - I'm really glad we got one.

Cardew

The OP hasn't stated if they have TRV's or not.

Many old CH systems didn't have a room thermostat, and even without TRVs it isn't that much trouble to switch the heating on and off manually - and turn off radiators in rooms not used during the day.

Some of the posts above give the impression that a room thermostat is going to drastically lower heating costs, while still keeping the house as warm as before - and it won't.

I am not suggesting that the OP shouldn't get a thermostat, but its main purpose will be the convenience of an 'automated' CH system. However they will still need to turn off radiators in rooms that don't require heating.

ilovelondontown

Sorry Cardew, I'm not familiar with the abbrviation TRV?

The boiler isn't actually that old, maybe 6 years old? We had it serviced earlier this year to see if that might help the situation.

Does turning radiators off in rooms that do not require it help?

I really need a professional to come and look at everything but I don't want to get ripped off by them telling me I need something that I don't.

macman

ilovelondontown wrote: »

Sorry Cardew, I'm not familiar with the abbrviation TRV?

The boiler isn't actually that old, maybe 6 years old? We had it serviced earlier this year to see if that might help the situation.

Does turning radiators off in rooms that do not require it help?

I really need a professional to come and look at everything but I don't want to get ripped off by them telling me I need something that I don't.

Thermostatic Radiator Valve.
Yes, of course turning off un-needed rads helps! The less heat that you lose from the CH circuit, the less gas is burned to reheat the cooler water from the return. If you had electric heating, would you leave it on it unused rooms?
It's quite simple, you need a decent programmer and you need TRV's. A 6 year old install should have had these from scratch, so I'm wondering who installed your boiler?
Cardew, while I take your point that proper controls do not automatically lead to savings, the odds are that by being able to precisely control timing and temp, the OP will enjoy a much more effective CH system that should be less wasteful-if properly set up.