Best settings for conventional bolier

Shrimply

Hi guys,

Looking for some opinions. Living in a rented flat with an old conventional boiler. There is a timer unit but no thermostat.

Up until the cold spell hit I've have the heating on for half an hour in the morning and the same in the evening, and this has been enough for me to be comfortable.

The TRV's are all set to 1, except for a spare room where the radiator is off (and doesn't work anyway). The bedroom is set to 2, and I turn the living room up to 2 if I'm going to be in there during the evening.

The radiator in the hall has no TRV.

All fine but now it's a bit colder I'm a borderline where if the living room TRV is up at 2 the bedroom struggles to get up to a sensible temperature.

So basically to compensate, is it more economical to turn up the temperature of the boiler, or to run the heating for longer. Logically I'm thinking if I run it for longer although there will be some heat lose it will probably feel like the place is warmer for longer. And if I set the temperature higher a lot of this will end up being wasted on the hall heater.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Shrimply

This seems to have slipped off the page without any thoughts

Gloomendoom

Shrimply wrote: »

This seems to have slipped off the page without any thoughts

It would depend on how much hotter you make the house and how much longer you would run the heating at the original temperature.

Andy_WSM

Shrimply wrote: »

The TRV's are all set to 1, except for a spare room where the radiator is off (and doesn't work anyway). The bedroom is set to 2, and I turn the living room up to 2 if I'm going to be in there during the evening.

You shouldn't need to adjust the boiler temperature. Leave it on a mid setting for most circumstances (maybe higher if the next ice age arrives in the boilers lifetime).

The TRVs are what you use for adjusting the temperature in the rooms. Number 3 on the TRV will mean the room is heated to approx 19-20C. If that's too cold, turn the TRV up. If it's too warm, turn it down. Don't fiddle around with the boiler it is entirely unnecessary and will have little bearing on the room temperatures.

Shrimply

Sorry yeah, I should say, that basically I only need it to reach the temp I want, and then it's fine for the rest of the evening it seems.

Maybe I'm going about it in the wrong way, but at the minute I generally have the heating on from 6.30 to 7.30, about an hour after the heating switches off the flat is at its warmest. So if it gets to 18C then slowly cools down until I go to bed, this is perfect.

So maybe I'm approaching it in the wrong way, but basically my question based on the above is, if its struggling to get up to 18, is it better to run it for longer until it does, or to set the boiler to a hotter temperature.

Shrimply

Forgive my ignorance but in my head the boiler temperature is important.

Because the hotter the water being pumped through the system is, the quicker the room will get up to temperature and allow the TRVs to start operating. But a lot of that heat will be "wasted" heating the hall. Whereas if the boiler temperature is lower, the rooms will take a bit longer to get up to temperature, but the hall is not going to be a bit cooler. Which maybe makes more sense, no?

Would be much easier with a thermostat haha

matelodave

Ideally you need the boiler set to about 65 - 75 degrees although if you set it too hot it won't condense properly, the radiators can become very hot and dangerous for older people or young children.

The boiler stat controls the water temperature in the boiler and a hotter radiator will get the room hotter faster than a cooler one.

You should have a room stat somewhere in the dwelling that is located in a room or hallway which has a radiator which is heated by the boiler and that should switch the boiler/pump on and off to control the overall temperature.

TRVs then control the individual room temperatures although if there is one in the room where the room stat is located it should be set to wide open. Increasing the temperature on the room stat or TRV will not warm the room any quicker it will just get hotter eventually.

Shrimply

matelodave wrote: »

Ideally you need the boiler set to about 65 - 75 degrees although if you set it too hot it won't condense properly, the radiators can become very hot and dangerous for older people or young children.

The boiler stat controls the water temperature in the boiler and a hotter radiator will get the room hotter faster than a cooler one.

You should have a room stat somewhere in the dwelling that is located in a room or hallway which has a radiator which is heated by the boiler and that should switch the boiler/pump on and off to control the overall temperature.

TRVs then control the individual room temperatures although if there is one in the room where the room stat is located it should be set to wide open. Increasing the temperature on the room stat or TRV will not warm the room any quicker it will just get hotter eventually.

I know that's the standard copy and paste response, I've read it multiple times here. But... It's not a condensing boiler, I also don't have old or young people to worry about, just me. And as I said there isn't a thermostat, if there was it wouldn't really be an issue.

So I'm just trying to establish the most economical and sensible way of doing things with just the timer, boiler temp and TRVs.

lstar337

matelodave wrote: »

Ideally you need the boiler set to about 65 - 75 degrees although if you set it too hot it won't condense properly, the radiators can become very hot and dangerous for older people or young children.

I assume it's not a condenser based on the OP calling in a conventional boiler, though they may just mean it isn't a combi.

I think the OP needs to clarify as the settings for a condenser will be different to a non-condenser.

Belenus

It could be that, in colder weather, the temperature setting on the boiler isn't high enough for the radiators to warm the rooms to your required temperature.

Experiment a bit.

Turn the boiler temp up a few degrees and see if that makes a difference. Try a few different temperatures until you find a temp that is ideal for the colder weather.

Turn it down again in warmer weather.

You should soon learn what temp to set it at according to the weather.

Whether the heat in the hall is wasted or not depends on your flat layout. If the heat leaks outside or into another flat beside or above you are losing it. If it leaks mainly into your other rooms then you are not losing much. It is probably somewhere in the middle.

matelodave

What sort of controls have you got then. Without a thermostat the boiler must be cooking away all the time trying to keep itself hot and what controls the pump - does that run continuously whilst the heating is on.

If that's the case you'd be better off spending less than £50 to fit a wireless programmable stat which would probably save you a lot more than faffing about with TRVs.