Bad idea not to keep heating on low during Winter..?

jk0

I'd set it to at least 12 degrees. (It's to do with the dewpoint, and preventing condensation inside walls.)


Personally my vacant properties are never under 15.

melanzana

welshbookworm wrote: »

Prince Charles advised Camilla to stop wasting energy during the winter by heating her swimming pool at Ray Mill, her house near the picturesque Wiltshire village of Lacock.
She did as he suggested — even though she’d been advised by professionals to keep the heating on in order to avoid the pipes freezing and bursting and causing damage to the pump.
And as they’d predicted, that’s precisely what happened — resulting in a repair bill for thousands of pounds.
Would have been cheaper to keep the heating on

Now I doubt very much that Camilla would have to worry financially about anything like that really. :rotfl:

DigForVictory

We drain our Welsh system every year, and have figured out more and cunningly lower down taps.

As far as we're concerned, you run on every tap in the house, turn off the water coming in & wait for the trickling to stop.
We have an additional tap by the stopcock, which is about half an inch off the floor & we have carefully rotated baking trays to catch the escaping remaining water til we are reasonably sure the system is dry.

In Spring, we have offspring at the stopcock & in the attic by the water tank, with torches, watching for leaks from pipes up in the attic. Any seen triggers a sequence of yells til the water is turned off, the pipe fixed & the water turned back on again. Restful & easy it isn't, but it does work, it's a family bonding experience, you learn to really appreciate someone who can swap out a length of water pipe in under 3 minutes & it is all Much Cheaper than trying to heat the place sufficiently to stop it freezing.

If it takes a couple of years to master, every leak is an inspiration to try harder & a chance to improve your plumbing skills.

25_Years_On

My insurance for a regularly empty house said the temperature needed to be kept at 12 degrees Celsius.

ShadyCharacter

Okay, perhaps 12 degrees would be better then. Unfortunately I'll be on my own (& not very confident either!), so draining the system sounds like it's not an option... Thanks a lot for all of your replies! I hope keeping the heating on isn't going to cost too much.....

Oh by the way, does anybody have any advice for what month it would be safe to turn the heating off again (i.e. when it gets sufficiently warm again)?

PhilE

Around 12-14 degrees, if you want to be safe from mold. gov.uk state 14, when I'm out I have mine at 13 with a dehumidifier on.

You really need to air a house out, even with heating on, for about half an hour a day. Can anyone come by and open the windows for a while?

Uxb

I would add that insurance may also specific the dates between which anti-frost protections shall be put in place - usually end of Nov to end of Mar.
Also they may specify (and I have seen this) that during those periods the loft hatch shall be left open
(not much point in keeping the house just frost free if the loft is as a result going to sub-zero).

Edit:
I usually say the main frost risk is in Jan /Feb when there is not much sun to warm things up and you may get whole days when it is below freezing particular when accompanied by freezing fog -this is the ultra high risk periods.
By March, although we get cold nights by and large the entire days are not below freezing.

coffeehound

You could follow the advice of the Telegraph columnist and run your boiler (full time) at a low radiator circuit temperature setting which should improve its efficiency.

This comment should be tempered by a warning to check first that running in this way provides enough heat to stay on top of the situation as it will depend on a range of factors though.

However, I heated a stone-built semi with boiler temperature on minimum 24/7 and it was able to maintain 17C during last December’s freezing spell. Probably higher temperature would have been possible too. It does mean the boiler runs a lot of the time.
.

bob_a_builder

Fire_Fox wrote: »

It would be worth also consulting your insurance companies: they may well have rules or guidelines for just such a situation.

Recently took out unoccupied insurance on my mum house and one of the conditions is that the system is either drained or set to be constantly ON ( not timed) with a min temp of 12 deg, from 1st Nov to 1st March

Also house has to be inspected every 30 days ( and records kept ) to maintain cover