How to heat 1900s terraced house during winter

FreeBear

Get some chimney sheep and plug the hole above each fireplace. You can use an old pillow or duvet stuffed into a plastic bag instead of a sheep. Plugging the flues will save all the heat going straight up the chimney.

The wall vents, put some duct tape over them to kill the breeze. No need for them if you are not using the fireplaces.

BUFF

Should I set my heating to never go below 10 or so at night or will this eat too much energy?

Where is your roomstat? Does it/your programmer have a facility to set different temps for different times of day?Do you have TRVs?
Do you know if your boiler/heating system is set up properly (flow & return temps) to let the boiler condense most of the time?
Oh, & where in the country are you?

Tbh, I have tried it both ways & in my house/system found little difference in cost/energy usage - if you let it drop too low overnight then the boiler has to work harder/longer in the morning once it switches on as it has a higher temp. difference to recover (albeit that way should use less energy).
If it is forecast for 0C or less overnight I will leave the boiler "on" but under the control of the roomstat (with a night setback temp) to actually call for heat or not.

Chickereeeee

Check to see if there is a door in the flue (chimney) of the fireplace. Sometimes, bedroom fireplaces had these fitted to reduce drafts, as, even in Victorian times, they were not often used.

FreshlyCutFlowers

BUFF said:

Should I set my heating to never go below 10 or so at night or will this eat too much energy?

Where is your roomstat? Does it/your programmer have a facility to set different temps for different times of day?Do you have TRVs?
Do you know if your boiler/heating system is set up properly (flow & return temps) to let the boiler condense most of the time?
Oh, & where in the country are you?

Tbh, I have tried it both ways & in my house/system found little difference in cost/energy usage - if you let it drop too low overnight then the boiler has to work harder/longer in the morning once it switches on as it has a higher temp. difference to recover (albeit that way should use less energy).
If it is forecast for 0C or less overnight I will leave the boiler "on" but under the control of the roomstat (with a night setback temp) to actually call for heat or not.

the thermostat is battery operated and can move around is my understanding.
Not sure if different temperatures per time of day is possible but will look into it.

I'm in zone 4 south east of london. I don't know anything about flow & return temps, is this something I should look into and if so please guide me to the right resources.

NQManchester

Is your home all carpeted or any exposed floorboards? We found our similarly aged house was freezing before we carpeted everywhere due to the drafts 

BUFF

FreshlyCutFlowers said:

BUFF said:

Should I set my heating to never go below 10 or so at night or will this eat too much energy?

Where is your roomstat? Does it/your programmer have a facility to set different temps for different times of day?Do you have TRVs?
Do you know if your boiler/heating system is set up properly (flow & return temps) to let the boiler condense most of the time?
Oh, & where in the country are you?

Tbh, I have tried it both ways & in my house/system found little difference in cost/energy usage - if you let it drop too low overnight then the boiler has to work harder/longer in the morning once it switches on as it has a higher temp. difference to recover (albeit that way should use less energy).
If it is forecast for 0C or less overnight I will leave the boiler "on" but under the control of the roomstat (with a night setback temp) to actually call for heat or not.

the thermostat is battery operated and can move around is my understanding.
Not sure if different temperatures per time of day is possible but will look into it.

I'm in zone 4 south east of london. I don't know anything about flow & return temps, is this something I should look into and if so please guide me to the right resources.

Do you know what make/model your thermostat & programmer are?
So, your ambient temp. over Winter is likely to be ~ 5C warmer than I have in Glasgow. 

Condensing boilers should be run with lower flow & return temps. than older non-condensing boilers traditionally were. You want the return to be 55C or lower (the lower the more efficient your boiler will run but running very low temps may mean needing radiators with larger surface area/max. output or running for longer - it is a trade-off) for the system to condense which recovers heat from the exhaust gases. Typically the flow temp is set to 20C above the return. The system should also be balanced 

FreshlyCutFlowers

NQManchester said:

Is your home all carpeted or any exposed floorboards? We found our similarly aged house was freezing before we carpeted everywhere due to the drafts 

Bedrooms are carpeted. Kitchen and living room are exposed (but from what I can see this floor has been put on top of a thin carpet)

BUFF said:

Do you know what make/model your thermostat & programmer are?
So, your ambient temp. over Winter is likely to be ~ 5C warmer than I have in Glasgow. 

Condensing boilers should be run with lower flow & return temps. than older non-condensing boilers traditionally were. You want the return to be 55C or lower (the lower the more efficient your boiler will run but running very low temps may mean needing radiators with larger surface area/max. output or running for longer - it is a trade-off) for the system to condense which recovers heat from the exhaust gases. Typically the flow temp is set to 20C above the return. The system should also be balanced 

I have this Greenstar Comfort RF 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV2OHiNgGXY
It allows me to set multiple time schedules in the same day, each with its own temperature. It also allows me to set this on a per day of the week basis.

I believe this is a condensing boiler but I don't understand what you mean by lower flow and return temps. I've got my living room radiatiors (ground floor) at 4 and 5 and bedroom radiators (1st and 2nd floor) at 2. I've set the night temperature to 14 degrees (termostat is in living room) and 18 during day time. Please nudge me in the right direction if I can optimise this.

FreeBear said:

Get some chimney sheep and plug the hole above each fireplace. You can use an old pillow or duvet stuffed into a plastic bag instead of a sheep. Plugging the flues will save all the heat going straight up the chimney.

The wall vents, put some duct tape over them to kill the breeze. No need for them if you are not using the fireplaces.

Is this considered safe? I've been searching a lot online and find so many cautionary stories about condensation damp and mold following vents and chimneys being blocked off.

FreeBear

FreshlyCutFlowers said: I've got my living room radiatiors (ground floor) at 4 and 5 and bedroom radiators (1st and 2nd floor) at 2. I've set the night temperature to 14 degrees (termostat is in living room) and 18 during day time. Please nudge me in the right direction if I can optimise this.

The night temperature is quite chilly for me... My base temperature is 17°C going up to 19°C daytime in the hall. Bedroom TRVs are set to No.3.

At No.2, the radiators will be starting to shut down at 14-15°C in your bedrooms - I'd suggest going up a notch and keeping the bedrooms a little warmer. That will help to ward off the effects of condensation.

For your info, the numbers on the TRVs should equate to the following -

• 0 = Off
• 1 = 10°C
• 2 = 15°C
• 3 = 20°C
• 4 = 25°C
• 5 = 30°C

These are the temperatures that the TRV will turn the radiator off. There is a bit of tolerance either way depending on brand & manufacturing processes.

coffeehound

FreshlyCutFlowers said:

I believe this is a condensing boiler but I don't understand what you mean by lower flow and return temps. I've got my living room radiatiors (ground floor) at 4 and 5 and bedroom radiators (1st and 2nd floor) at 2. I've set the night temperature to 14 degrees (termostat is in living room) and 18 during day time. Please nudge me in the right direction if I can optimise this.

Hi FCF, what is the model number of the boiler itself?  

BUFF

FreshlyCutFlowers said:

I believe this is a condensing boiler but I don't understand what you mean by lower flow and return temps. I've got my living room radiatiors (ground floor) at 4 and 5 and bedroom radiators (1st and 2nd floor) at 2. I've set the night temperature to 14 degrees (termostat is in living room) and 18 during day time. Please nudge me in the right direction if I can optimise this.

Your central heating system forms a loop where the heated water flows out from the boiler via the various radiators, losing heat & returns to the boiler cooler. The boiler and radiators (balancing) can be adjusted to vary the temperatures of the flow & return.
Traditionally, they probably would have been set at 80C flow & 60C return (a difference of 20C). However, a condensing boiler needs the return temperature to be below the dewpoint of the flue gases in order to condense (& thereby recycle/recover energy) - typically that means 55C or lower (lower is better) so most modern condensing systems with radiators should be set to run at a max of 75 flow/55 return (it is also possible on some systems to run with a higher difference between flow & return e.g. 80 flow/50 return) but many of them were not when installed. 
Worcester Bosch typically have 2 knobs - 1 will let you adjust the temperature of water to the radiators & the other the temperature of hot water.
The manual for your particular boiler probably has a page with something describing the use of the knob for the radiators similar to:

Position Central heating temperature

1 approx. 35 °C

2 approx. 43 °C

3 approx. 50 °C

4 approx. 60 °C

5 approx. 67 °C

6 approx. 75 °C

max approx. 90 °C

14 night/18 day on your room stat/programmer in conjunction with room TRVs* should be fine for most folk but if you take the time to get to know your system & how the various rooms in your house respond you can probably tweak it a bit more.

*the room with your room stat should either not have a TRV on the radiator in it or the TRV if fitted should be set to max.