Leave boiler on?????

MysteryMan

My son is in a shared 3-storey townhouse, which has gas-fired boiler providing heating and hot water.

The landlord has replaced the boiler but the new one does not have a timer fitted, which would cost about £65 to have installed and the cheapskate landlord has refused to pay for this.

For some reason, the other tenants are baulking at paying this and want to do without. Their view is that they should leave the boiler on ALL the time and just control it by turning up/down the room thermostat when they get up, go to bed, leave the house and return.

My view is that this will be very inefficient, expensive and they ought to spend the £65 for a timer to properly control it.

Anyone have any opinions?

Andy_WSM

Arguably, their way of turning the heating on via the thermostat only when they are home could be more efficient. It would rely on everyone remembering to turn it off as they leave though.

The down side of having the heating timed is that if no one is home the heating will come on and heat an empty property.

I have programmable thermostats, which vary the heating between either 18C overnight and during the day to 21C morning & evening.

Each to their own though and with every property being different, different insulation levels and heat losses, no one on a forum can tell you what is best for that particular property.

The only certainties, ever, are that no boiler on = no running cost and the longer the burner is using gas the higher the bill will be.

StuC75

Unless your Son is happy to foot the cost himself, you will generally have to go with the majority opinion..

How long have they been in the property & how what are there average costs - do they keep track of this...

Thinking being If there is scope to explain how that could be recovered in just a couple of months. But past usage and knowing how long they are likely to be there is the only way to pitch what could be saved..

Nada666

It is cheaper for a single person or couple not to use their timers but there is no reason not to get one installed, even if the tenants have to pay for it themselves. It will easily pay itself back over one winter. With six or more (I assume) separate tenants not having a default timer is bonkers. It is not perfect and there will still be arguments and it will be regularly over-ridden.

Read the meters and check the usage over eight or nine hours. Calculate the cost. There are two eight hour periods per day that can be left on. For a three storey flat that is a non-trivial sum of money.

Cardew

I agree with post 2 in that turning down the thermostat can work perfectly well and is no more expensive in running costs than a timer.

However this is a student house!!! thus that routine will never in a million years be carried out religiously.

MysteryMan

Cardew wrote: »

I agree with post 2 in that turning down the thermostat can work perfectly well and is no more expensive in running costs than a timer.

However this is a student house!!! thus that routine will never in a million years be carried out religiously.

Thanks!

One of the points in favour or a timer is that they will have a warm house and hot water when they get up or return home as opposed to a delay if using thermostat to fire up boiler!

liam8282

Why wouldn't they want the safeguard of having a timer in a shared house?

All it takes is one person to leave their thermostat on full 24/7 and you end up paying for heating their room.

I guess when the bill comes and this is mentioned, they might change their minds.

Cardew

MysteryMan wrote: »

Thanks!

One of the points in favour or a timer is that they will have a warm house and hot water when they get up or return home as opposed to a delay if using thermostat to fire up boiler!

Agreed!

I wasn't suggesting they shouldn't have a timer, it obviously makes sense or they wouldn't be fitted.

I was simply pointing out the manually turning down(and up) the thermostat will not cost any more money.

daveyjp

On a modern boiler even if the thermostat is down the boiler may tick over to maintain the heating loop temperature.

barrymung

MysteryMan wrote: »

One of the points in favour or a timer is that they will have a warm house and hot water when they get up or return home as opposed to a delay if using thermostat to fire up boiler!

That suggests it's not a conventional combi boiler set up but one with a seperate hot water cylinder, in which case a timer will save oodles!

barrymung

Thought: A lot of boilers have a timer built in; is there a flap on the front with a timer underneath?