Gas Central Heating - Most Efficient Usage?

bankhater2007

Hi everyone. I have GCH (1 bed flat) and it's pretty efficient, but I was wondering if someone knew the best way to keep the gas usage down.

Is it better to turn the radiator water temperature controller on the combi boiler down, thus meaning it presumably has to be on a little more but is perhaps not working as hard (and using as much gas), or turn it up so the water heats more quickly but the boiler isn't on as much because hotter water is flowing through the system?

There's a thermostat in the flat, and obviously there's no need to have the boiler going crazy, making the water hotter than it needs to be for the desired temperature.

Any advice (or if I'm missing some obvious point!) gratefully received. :cool:

tomstickland

Lowering the peak temperature will make it more efficient IMO, since heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference.

Rikki

I had my gas boiler serviced today and the man suggested I had the boiler control set to 3 or 4, to reduce the amount of gas used.

As you said the boiler doesn't need to be working away if it doesn't need to.

andrew-b

Our condensing boiler (non-combi) is set to heat upto 80C. The thermostat on the hot water cylinder is set to about 58C. I've noticed when the boiler has just heated water for the cylinder it feels scalding so i'm wondering whether the thermostat on the cylinder is badly calibrated (or poor contact with the cylinder) or if i should lower the temperature on the boiler at the sacrifice of rads taking longer to warm the house.

I was told that the hot water thermostat on the cylinder should be somewhere near 60C as there is a trade off between Legionella (causing Legionnaire's Disease) multiplying if the temperature is too low or scalding yourself if it's too high. So lowering the temperature isn't necessarily a good idea..even if it does save money!

If you do a google search on "hot water temperature" the first result is an interesting article from the Institute of Plumbers and Heating Engineers which discusses safe hot water temperatures : [SIZE=-1]www.iphe.co.uk/databyte/legionella.pdf[/SIZE]

Andy