Leave heating on low or on timer - My experience

amtrakuk

It may be a bit of a no-brainer to alot of people but a two fold experiment. About a year ago I was intrigued by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0oaShv_Y80 also being an all electric house it grabbed my attention so I thought I'd give it a go and here are my findings.

OK I do live in a lot older and probably not as well insulated house than that in the video. But I "assumed" as in the video once the core of the house got heated the usage would drop. Thankfully this winter hasn't been as cold as the last couple meaning the day/overnight temps being quite constant over the last month.

Stupidly I never took intermediate readings as the heaters didn't seem to be on that much. Well, I nearly fell off my chair when the results came in. The meter reading in 15th December was 54984, 31st Jan it was 59136 meaning over 47 days so I used 4152 kW in total or £9.68/88 kW a day :eek:

After a few days glued to my energy meter with pencil and paper in hand, multiplying up hourly readings with a very confused look on my face as the hourly daytime figures multiplied by 24 never got anywhere near 88 kW all I can assume is most the energy is used at night when its coldest.

No wonder the radiators looked so sheepish and if anything a little bloated on electricity when I came downstairs in the morning :mad:

Since using timers on heating my first meter readings are 09h00 3nd Feb 59285 and 09h00 4th Feb 59328 (43kW) meaning I've saved a whopping 50%. :j

Next it to limit the thermal store for a burst in the morning and one in the evening hopefully to being it down under 40 kW a day.

Long view target of 35 kW a day

matelodave

What sort of energy monitor have you got - the Current Cost units can store the consumption in very small chunks and with the appropriate software you can analyse what you are using without sitting there with pen & paper. You can connect it to the internet using a bridge unit and it will continuously monitor your consumption - try looking at https://xively.com/feeds/26577/?from_cosm=true&pachube_redirect=true click on the graphs (right hand side) and you can see my energy consumption almost in real time - you can also download the data to put into your own spread sheets.

lee111s

I have my heating on constant and work it off the thermostat in the hall. About 9:30, an hour or so before bed I turn the thermostat down to about 13 (the hall for some reason is much colder than the rest of the house even with a radiator and a new composite front door) then ensures the heating doesn't come on through the night. When I get up in the morning and set it to 16 degrees which then heats the house to about 20. The heating then comes on and off throughout the day to maintain that temperature.

When I go out I turn the stat down to 12 so that the heating isn't on when I'm out.

I work from home so slightly different than most people's usage but this keeps the house comfortable all day. My monthly bill is around £100 for gas and electricity. It's a 3 bed new build semi with a combi boiler and there's 3 of us living here. Not bad considering I'm in all day!

amtrakuk

matelodave wrote: »

What sort of energy monitor have you got - the Current Cost units can store the consumption in very small chunks and with the appropriate software you can analyse what you are using without sitting there with pen & paper. You can connect it to the internet using a bridge unit and it will continuously monitor your consumption - try looking at https://xively.com/feeds/26577/?from_cosm=true&pachube_redirect=true click on the graphs (right hand side) and you can see my energy consumption almost in real time - you can also download the data to put into your own spread sheets.

That looks great... I currently have an EFnergy meter which stores the energy usage day by day for up to 7 days... Fingers crossed I should have it sorted. Just fitted a timer to the last rad.. Got a steady base line of about 250 watts

amtrakuk

lee111s wrote: »

I have my heating on constant and work it off the thermostat in the hall. About 9:30, an hour or so before bed I turn the thermostat down to about 13 (the hall for some reason is much colder than the rest of the house even with a radiator and a new composite front door) then ensures the heating doesn't come on through the night. When I get up in the morning and set it to 16 degrees which then heats the house to about 20. The heating then comes on and off throughout the day to maintain that temperature.

When I go out I turn the stat down to 12 so that the heating isn't on when I'm out.

I work from home so slightly different than most people's usage but this keeps the house comfortable all day. My monthly bill is around £100 for gas and electricity. It's a 3 bed new build semi with a combi boiler and there's 3 of us living here. Not bad considering I'm in all day!

That seems very good going... The new build houses are a lot more energy efficient than the solid wall I have. I generally like to "feel" warm in the house which is the problem... However just learning that if all the house is an even temp you don't have the "ooh isn't it cold in here"

matelodave

amtrakuk wrote: »

That looks great... I currently have an EFnergy meter which stores the energy usage day by day for up to 7 days... Fingers crossed I should have it sorted. Just fitted a timer to the last rad.. Got a steady base line of about 250 watts

Have a look at the liitle clock under the graph that says 6 hours. Click on it and you'll get options for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month and 3 monthl graphs as well as 5 mins, 30mins and 1 hour. You use the slider to zoom into a particular period or day

iris

lee111s wrote: »

I have my heating on constant and work it off the thermostat in the hall. About 9:30, an hour or so before bed I turn the thermostat down to about 13 (the hall for some reason is much colder than the rest of the house even with a radiator and a new composite front door) then ensures the heating doesn't come on through the night. When I get up in the morning and set it to 16 degrees which then heats the house to about 20. The heating then comes on and off throughout the day to maintain that temperature.

When I go out I turn the stat down to 12 so that the heating isn't on when I'm out.

I work from home so slightly different than most people's usage but this keeps the house comfortable all day. My monthly bill is around £100 for gas and electricity. It's a 3 bed new build semi with a combi boiler and there's 3 of us living here. Not bad considering I'm in all day!

That is exactly what we do, however, we do leave our heating on low when we go out, so that our bungalow is warm to come home to.

We are at home 24/7 as we are retired.

We have oil central heating plus of course our electric and our yearly bill is approximately £1250 at the moment.

lee111s

iris wrote: »

That is exactly what we do, however, we do leave our heating on low when we go out, so that our bungalow is warm to come home to.

We are at home 24/7 as we are retired.

We have oil central heating plus of course our electric and our yearly bill is approximately £1250 at the moment.

Sounds good! I often don't know how long I'm out for and as the house is really efficient it only takes 20-30 minutes to warm up if I've been out for a few hours. I turn the thermostat to like 13 (the rest of the house would be 15/16 if the hallway was this cold) so it will click on if it gets really cold!

oldskoo1

lee111s wrote: »

I have my heating on constant and work it off the thermostat in the hall. About 9:30, an hour or so before bed I turn the thermostat down to about 13 (the hall for some reason is much colder than the rest of the house even with a radiator and a new composite front door) then ensures the heating doesn't come on through the night. When I get up in the morning and set it to 16 degrees which then heats the house to about 20. The heating then comes on and off throughout the day to maintain that temperature.

When I go out I turn the stat down to 12 so that the heating isn't on when I'm out.

I work from home so slightly different than most people's usage but this keeps the house comfortable all day. My monthly bill is around £100 for gas and electricity. It's a 3 bed new build semi with a combi boiler and there's 3 of us living here. Not bad considering I'm in all day!

We do this too

On at 6am and off at 10pm - again the hall is cold so 16.5c on the digital stat is 20c elsewhere

Ours is 10 years old, 5 bed detached and we pay £120 p/m

Currently gas usage is between £150 and £170 p/m but it's only £17 in the summer months heating the hot water.


Like the other posters this suits us, overnight uses a lot more and if your insulation isn't great I can see the bill being quite a bit higher. Overall no point having it on when your out. Just have it cone on 30mins before you typically get back

amtrakuk

Hurray - 36kW used in the last 24 hours - that includes making and baking a macaroni cheese... Bit chilly when I got in as the Rads hadn't fully heated the room but the saving is worth the short chill

Great news for the savvy savers above.. I was looking into a dimplex system that would do a simular thing. You can control multiple heaters from one module. Being able to set it to "off" "fall back" and "regular" at set times I believe. Only problem is it would need another visit from the sparky as it uses a pilot wire to link them all.

pstuart

lee111s wrote: »

I have my heating on constant and work it off the thermostat in the hall. About 9:30, an hour or so before bed I turn the thermostat down to about 13 (the hall for some reason is much colder than the rest of the house even with a radiator and a new composite front door) then ensures the heating doesn't come on through the night. When I get up in the morning and set it to 16 degrees which then heats the house to about 20. The heating then comes on and off throughout the day to maintain that temperature.

When I go out I turn the stat down to 12 so that the heating isn't on when I'm out.



We've just had a new Vaillant ecoTEC pro 28 fitted and in the comic supplied with it, it suggests that when you are 'absent', you set the temperature less 5degrees than your normal temperature.

"If you reduce the room temperature by more than 5degrees, you do not save any additional energy, because increased heating capacities would then be required for the next full heating period".
So you are absolutely right in your endeavors - and very comfortable as well!