New Bungalow With No Thermostat

AfxTwn

Hi, I am about to move into a 2 bedroom bungalow (private rented) and there is no room thermostat, only an old boiler with simple controls to adjust the CH and water temperature. The radiators do have TRV's on though.

I am a little worried about high gas bills as my last house had very high gas bills even with a new boiler, room thermostat and TRV's but low usage. Anyway, what would be the best way to keep my bills down and what should I set the boiler controls to? I know not having the radiators on in rooms I don't use will help but realistically, I will use the spare room a lot as that is where my computer will be and then obviously the master bedroom will be used at night when I'm in bed.

The second most used room will be the living room I guess. There is an electric fire in the living room so I was considering just using that rather than the radiator. In order to have the heating on I will have to just go to the boiler and turn it on and off there I guess. It sounds like it could potentially be very expensive to run without a room thermostat or programmer.

Thanks for any advice.

coffeehound

You could try turning the radiator circuit temperature dial on the boiler down to number 1 with TRVs set to preference, and see how that copes with keeping the house warm.

RelievedSheff

Prior to contrary belief we have found that our system works most efficiently with all radiator TRVs turned up to the max.

It all depends how the system is set up. Our boiler is on the large size for the system so turning TRVs down has an adverse effect and sets the boiler cycling and inefficient!

AfxTwn

I move in next week so I will have a play with the TRV's. I haven't been able to get a good look at the boiler but it looks old and has two dials to control the heating/water so it doesn't seem to be too sophisticated.

The people that lived in before me were an older couple and so I think they probably had the heating on a lot and at a higher temperature. I'm more concerned with high bills than with how warm the house is really. Hopefully it won't be too bad being a smaller home and just for me. My current house is a 3 bedroom end of terrace and just costs a fortune to heat so I have taken to using the heating minimally and at a low temperature.

Hopefully that will be all behind me soon and the new place will be much better.

Nebulous2

It's probably worth experimenting and keeping a good eye on the meter to see how much you are using.

Our previous heating system was as you have described. Each room had TRVs and they were set to personal preferences. Our house was built in the early 90s and seems to be reasonably well insulated. We've never had high bills.

We then got a new boiler with one radiator without a TRV and we initially struggled. The room thermostat controls hot water supply to all the radiators, in line with the TRV free radiator. My son in particular struggled. His room is at the front of the house which is colder in the morning. His room wouldn't be up to temperature when the boiler cut out. His response was to turn up the TRV, which meant his room was far too warm late afternoon / evening.

AfxTwn

I'm also going to change suppliers. I am currently with Npower and have had nothing but problems with them, so it'll be a fresh start in the new house. I'm thinking of going with Octopus Energy or one of the other alternatives to the big six.

Talldave

Nebulous2 wrote: »

It's probably worth experimenting and keeping a good eye on the meter to see how much you are using.

Our previous heating system was as you have described. Each room had TRVs and they were set to personal preferences. Our house was built in the early 90s and seems to be reasonably well insulated. We've never had high bills.

We then got a new boiler with one radiator without a TRV and we initially struggled. The room thermostat controls hot water supply to all the radiators, in line with the TRV free radiator. My son in particular struggled. His room is at the front of the house which is colder in the morning. His room wouldn't be up to temperature when the boiler cut out. His response was to turn up the TRV, which meant his room was far too warm late afternoon / evening.

It's worth having the thermostat in the hardest to heat room (with TRV set to max, if fitted) and using the TRVs in other rooms to limit the heat to the required comfort level. You can use a wireless programmable thermostat to achieve that.

Norman_Castle

Set the trvs at your preferred room temperature, use halfway, normally 3, which is about 70 degrees, as a starting point. Set the ch water temperature to above the warmest room temperature.
The boiler is likely to have a thermostat measuring the water temperature. My previous boiler had this and it wasn't expensive to run.

PasturesNew

AfxTwn wrote: »

The radiators do have TRV's on

That's all you need.

I'd keep all to a minimum, just turning up the control when I entered a room I was expecting to remain in. For the most part I'd keep them all very very low except the living room when I'm in it.

Talldave

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Set the trvs at your preferred room temperature, use halfway, normally 3, which is about 70 degrees, as a starting point. Set the ch water temperature to above the warmest room temperature.
The boiler is likely to have a thermostat measuring the water temperature. My previous boiler had this and it wasn't expensive to run.

Doesn't that mean the boiler's pump has to run 24/7?

Nebulous2

Talldave wrote: »

Doesn't that mean the boiler's pump has to run 24/7?

I've no idea of the technical layout, but ours certainly didn't when we didn't have a thermostat. When the TRVs on the radiators cut out the pump stopped. There was a motorised valve under the floor and another in the airing cupboard - though what role they played I couldn't say.

It seemed a simpler yet effective system. When replacing our boiler we were told that new regulations meant one of the radiators had to be a straight-through one without a TRV and we had to have a room thermostat. Strangely that advance has made it much less user friendly and in some ways less controllable. What it has allowed though is to set different temperatures at different times of the day. Our old system the timer only put it on / off.