Gas - better on lower and longer or short and high?

new666uk

Hi all,


This is probably as old a question as the 'should I leave my heating on all the time' question but I didn't see an obvious answer to this one.


We preset the heating to come on in the morning and evening but as ours is an older property we find rooms get to different temps. So, the question is, should I set the heating to turn on sooner but reduce he TRV's in some rooms to balance? The temps get comfortable eventually but, especially in the morning, soon rooms are still too cold whilst others heat up nicely. Just to be clear, the colder rooms would get nice and warm eventually but we would have left the house.


Sorry if it's an obvious one.


Paul

FreeBear

The important question is what temperature is your thermostat set to ?
Winding it up to a higher temperature will not make the house heat up any quicker.

I've been running my heating 24/7 for the last few months (with a fancy hyper-programmable control). Set for 17°C at night, around 18°C during the day, and 20°C in the evening. Boiler runs for two to three hours each day and keeps us reasonably warm. But the house is occupied all day, so need to keep the heating on.
Has this saved me any money ?
Difficult to say for sure, as I don't have reliable data for previous years.

Cardew

If you have a condensing gas boiler - they have been mandatory for 10 years or so?? - as a general principle they are more efficient run with the WATER, (which is set on the boiler) at a lower temperature.


However the penalty of lower water temperature is that it will take longer for the rooms to reach the temperature set on the wall thermometer/TRVs


Your solution of turning the CH on earlier and adjusting TRVs seems the most sensible solution.

Gerry1

Sounds like the radiators in the cold rooms are under dimensioned.

Talldave

Use a programmable thermostat with optimum start and over a period of a few days it'll learn what time it needs to turn the boiler on to get to the required temperature at the time you've set. (And yes, use the TRVs to stop other rooms getting too hot).


I've used Honeywell thermostats in the past with this feature and have always found it to be excellent, a true "set and forget" experience.

new666uk

Thanks all.


We have a mix of old and newer radiators and not surprisingly the new ones perform better.



There is a wireless controller which is normally set to 22c. Depending on which room it's in, the heating will stay on for longer to reach it than in other rooms. It kicks in at say 6am and off at 8am but that will often mean some rooms are only reaching 19 or 20c hence thinking better to set it to come on earlier and give a longer window to reach the setpoint. It'll probably need some faffing to set the TRV's to better balance it.


As we replace rads, they are usually being upgraded for larger or twin ones which so far has been helpful.

FreeBear

new666uk wrote: »

[heating] kicks in at say 6am and off at 8am but that will often mean some rooms are only reaching 19 or 20c

19°C to 20°C is plenty warm enough for all but the very young or old & infirm. A jumper each will save quite a bit on heating in the long term. 20°C is the top end of what I have my heating set to, and it spends most of the time set two or three degrees lower.

As you change the radiators, it is worth getting the system balanced properly rather than relying on TRVs to do the job - That may help to get an even temperature rise, although some areas are traditionally a little cooler.