Was boiler guy talking rubbish?

JC1440

Not sure what you mean, Lum? I thought all the thermostat was there for was so you can set the boiler to come on at certain times, and dictate the temperature you want? I have my thermostat set to ''manual'', I flick the boiler on and off myself, it never comes on without my say so.

Thanks, Istar.

I only run the one radiator if, for example, I'm up in the morning and just want to warm my bedroom up for an hour before I go downstairs in a couple of hours time for my lunch, when I'll run all three radiators (bedroom and two downstairs). Sometimes in an evening I may run the bedroom radiator by itself, but it's rare; I spend most my time in my bedroom right now and it is smaller than downstairs and carpeted, so keeps the heat in very well. Most of the time it's three of the four radiators running, and at the moment that seems to be working okay, boiler staying on.

lstar337

JC1440 wrote: »

Not sure what you mean, Lum? I thought all the thermostat was there for was so you can set the boiler to come on at certain times, and dictate the temperature you want? I have my thermostat set to ''manual'', I flick the boiler on and off myself, it never comes on without my say so.

True, but the thermostat only knows the temperature from the rad in the room it is located.

I think you need a full run down of how a heating system works. It seems that a lot of posts in this thread are assuming that you know the basics, which your replies suggest you don't.

The thermostat is just a sensor, it reads the temperature of the room it is in. In my house it is in the hall/landing because this is the biggest open area in the house. This is because the heating engineer knew that this big open space would take the longest to heat.

Now, the thermostat turns the boiler on and off depending on temperature (there are more complicated systems but I am simplifying it for you). If the rad in the room with the thermostat is turned off (or all the way down) then that room will never get warm and turn the boiler off. This is why the rad in the room with the thermostat should be set to max. It will be the last room to heat to temperature and then shut off the boiler.

Once you get that basic system set up, the rest of the rooms are set using the valves. set them so the rooms are warm enough before the main thermostat turns off the boiler.

JC1440 wrote: »

I only run the one radiator if, for example, I'm up in the morning and just want to warm my bedroom up for an hour before I go downstairs in a couple of hours time for my lunch, when I'll run all three radiators (bedroom and two downstairs). Sometimes in an evening I may run the bedroom radiator by itself, but it's rare; I spend most my time in my bedroom right now and it is smaller than downstairs and carpeted, so keeps the heat in very well. Most of the time it's three of the four radiators running, and at the moment that seems to be working okay, boiler staying on.

Not to be rude, but that sounds like a lot of wasted effort. If the place is well insulated and retains heat well, the saving you will make from all that messing about will be marginal, and you will probably ruin the boiler in the process.

You should just set the rooms you are not using frequently to a lower level. Also the boiler has an ECO setting, but it is anything below that setting that is ECO, not just that point.

Setting the boiler to a lower setting will mean that it uses less gas, be (marginally) more efficient, and be less likely to cut out every 2 minutes due to overheating.

If you really need to run a single rad in a single room, then you should get a wireless thermostat and take it to the room you are using. That way when the room you are in reaches temperature, the boiler will shut off.

I hope this clears some of it up. I'm not great at putting information down on paper, so if any of it doesn't make sense just ask. :)

JC1440

I appreciate your comments, Istar.

The thing is, it's only me here right now, and I run the boiler a max of three times in a day, so it isn't a whole lot of effort for me. Why would it ruin the boiler? An earlier poster on here said it was completely fine to run one rad. If it is going to harm the boiler, I'll set the unused rads to the lowest setting, like you suggest.

lstar337

JC1440 wrote: »

The thing is, it's only me here right now, and I run the boiler a max of three times in a day, so it isn't a whole lot of effort for me.

Fair enough. I only run mine twice a day (1h @ 5:30 & 1h @ 18:00) for the whole house.

JC1440 wrote: »

Why would it ruin the boiler?

Ok, ruin may be a bit overzealous. But to me, if the boiler is switching on/off every five minutes because a single rad cannot dissipate the heat quick enough, then parts are going to wear out quicker. Whether you care about that is up to you. If the boiler is the landlords, who cares?

JC1440 wrote: »

An earlier poster on here said it was completely fine to run one rad. If it is going to harm the boiler, I'll set the unused rads to the lowest setting, like you suggest.

It may, it may not. I probably wont do anything immediately. I would turn the boiler output down though, it'll make the return temp lower which will stop the boiler cycling so much and have the added bonus of allowing it to condense and save on gas.

If it is now working how you want, then keep using it that way.

Moneyless

I trust the stat was not placed near a door, window or radiator ?
As that can massively influence the way it works, but some places don't make it easy to find the ideal placement, normally it should be put in the hallway, sorry to sound like contradicting the above, but I offer another view about what the thermostat does, it does not know how hot the radiator is, it knows how hot the room (space\area) is, a rad stat on the other hand would be much truer to say it knows the heat of the rad itself, no doubt both of us mean the same thing, we just have a different explanation of our understanding of this, but ultimately this stat is the ONLY thing that controls the boiler coming on when needed.


But as mentioned early on, there should be 1 radiator allowed to be open at all times (e.g. not restricted by any kind of stat), and yes usually the towel rail\bathroom (as it's closest to it normally), or as in my case, a bypass put in so the heated water can still flow, even though it does not pass through the rad and produce more heat, but still allows the circulation to happen which keeps the boiler from backing up, but it's been many years since I dabbled, so there may be new systems that have other ways of working, but this is the basic concept for more years than I can say.


But I agree the way you are using the system is not doing you any favours, to start with it costs far more to heat a room from cold, so you should have all rad's on, but set the stat to as low as you can without it feeling noticeably cold, say 16 degrees ish, or use the frost setting if you want to go hard-core, but it costs much less to top heat up, more so in modern builds as said, so keeping a low ambient temperature "should" be more economical, as it won't have to work anywhere near as hard to get the room up to what you want when your ready for it, and having the boiler on high means it can do it's job much faster, so would be working for less time.


Personally I have the boiler on high, the boiler installer explained why, but I have the memory span of a goldfish, and heating on 24\7, but controlled by a thermostatic valves on each rad, it does the same job as the room stat, but specifically for that rad\room, and have each room set to it's own level, then you set the temperature to the required level on the stat, which then controls when the boiler kicks in, no matter when a stat valve requires more heat, this allows the boiler to cycle as needed.


You should also let your boiler cycle in the summer months, so set your heating on a timer, and have it turn on each say once a week at night while you sleep for say 15 min's, being summer the temp's should be more than high enough for the heating to not heat the rad's, but still cycle the system, this may seem crazy, but it keeps the system working well, otherwise come winter, you could find the parts have seized (this happened to us).


Also on a side note, if you have a power cut, turn the boiler OFF at the main switch as soon as you can, they are like a computer these days, and power surges can kill them, and yes this happened to us as well, we had to get a new boiler due to this which cost as much as our entire system when first installed because of this, as when power is restored there is a big surge of power, then turn it on again when power is restored, but wait say 30 min's before you do, just incase there is a secondary, or even more cuts after, as it's not uncommon for them to turn it on and off to test each bit, and to work on it.


I hope this helps a bit, it is a complex subject with many variables, so each place has to be viewed in it's own right, and as technology advances things can change, and I am not into building anymore so may not know of certain changes, but I used to be able to design and specify what and where to put such things for maximum effect, but I have forgotten how too now, so can only speak generically these days, but hope it explains a bit for you.

JC1440

Istar, when you say turn the boiler output down, do you mean turning the switch on the actual boiler down from what I have it on now, the ''efficient'' setting?

Thanks for your post too, Moneyless.

lstar337

JC1440 wrote: »

Istar, when you say turn the boiler output down, do you mean turning the switch on the actual boiler down from what I have it on now, the ''efficient'' setting?

Thanks for your post too, Moneyless.

Yes. The lower you turn it, the more efficient it becomes, and the less gas it uses.

Moneyless

JC1440 wrote: »

Thanks for your post too, Moneyless.

No problem, I just hope it helped in some way.