What's the most economical way to heat here... ?

harz99

dander wrote: »

Jeez, I won't bother asking questions here again. I asked a simple question for thoughts about where to move a central heating knob and get told that actually I should strip a fully furnished, fully decorated bedroom with professionally laid carpet, wrench the entire 100-year-old floor up, presumably skirtings as well in order to be able to shift the floor - do this without damaging the walls or the floorboards despite the 4" iron nails that will be nailing the boards down, yeah, that sounds like destroying my house to me! That's before I spend a few minutes, just popping it all back in place like lego before I refit the carpet because, after all, I am presumably a professional carpet layer here. Practical! :rotfl:

Unless I have really missed something you didn't ask that question at all! So maybe it should be us doing the ROTFL;).

dander

Yes, I said "Is either way likely to be significantly more efficient than the other?"

GwylimT

maisie1234 wrote: »

I have a question...

My two children are away at school during the week. I like to use one of the bedrooms to dry clothes (as opposed to using a tumble dryer)

Is it best to keep this room on a low temp bearing in mind the damp clothes. Last winter by partner turned off the heating and it smelt damp and uncomfortable....

I would go with heating on low and window open, if you can try to seal the door from the outside to prevent heat from the rest of the house escaping, towel at the bottom of the door etc.

harz99

dander wrote: »

Yes, I said "Is either way likely to be significantly more efficient than the other?"

Which is nothing like "where to move a central heating knob", is it?

dander

Well, given that the two options I laid out above that question, and which the question referred to were two options for setting the central heating, what else would it mean?

I_have_spoken

dander wrote: »

a central heating knob

Fnar, fnar! He said 'knob'.

NewtoDIY

There is another option but would require some careful product research in terms of size etc. You could install a ceiling fan. I don't know how noisy they are but on a reverse slow rotation setting, it should "push" the hot air back down to you.

dander

That's an interesting thought. Thanks! Certainly worth a google :-)

jamesd

dander wrote: »

If the air above is warmer is has a lower density than cold air. Given that it's the difference in densities that means the hot air rises, then balancing the air densities theoretically would reduce the movement of air. But my question is about whether it costs more to heat the room above when the heating is on anyway, or leaving it cold and therefore having to pump more heat into the lower room, possibly over longer periods.

It's cheaper to heat just the lower room.

The air in the lower room will rise but most of it won't be able to enter the upper room and the ceiling will provide some insulation to keep heat in the lower room. If instead you heated the upper room, the walls and ceiling of that room would cause more heat loss than just the ceiling of the room below.

The only time it might make sense to heat the unused room is if the heating in the lower room couldn't keep it warm enough. If that was the case it'd be better to do something about that instead.

If it's readily practical you'd probably also save some money by ensuring that the door to the unused room is well draught proofed to reduce heat losses from the rest of the house by air flow through its door.

robatwork

I would probably use some of the hot air generated on this thread to recycle into your colder room - just leave your laptop on in the upstairs room pointing to this forum.