Radiators - does turning the hall & landing save money

greysquirrel175943

Hello.

Looking for some advise please.

We have gas central heating. Does anyone know what sort of a saving is to be made by turning the hall and landing radiators off? 

We keep all the radiators off in the rooms we don't use and we keep all doors shut. This makes sense for room that we literally don't go into but what about the hall and landing, is there enough of a saving to warrant that? We have been trying it for the last couple of weeks and its is freezing when walking through them. We can put up with the chill as long as it is making a difference on our bill but if it's a marginal saving then I'm not too sure.

Does anyone know the rough cost to heat the hall, stairs and landing?

matelodave

where is the main thermostat. If its in the hall and you turn the rad off then the boiler will run continuously. If the sts is in the hall then its controlling the whole house , so you need to ensure that the rad is turned on.

But in general if you turn a radiator off then you'll save some energy as you wont be heating that space however depending on the size of the rad it could use between 5-10p and hour if it was on continuously using gas. The equivalent for an electric radiator could be 21-42p/hour, again if it was on continuously.

Most heating systems are thermostatically  controlled and, assuming that the rad is big enough to heat the space, it wont be on continuously once the room is up to the set temperature

greysquirrel175943

Thank you for your reply.

We have a hive thermostat and we keep it in the living room which is where we probably spend 80%  of our time when the heating is on.

So if a central heating radiator costs upto 10p an hour when on, then 1 hall and one landing radiator will be upto 20p per hour when. That seems like a good saving over the winter months.

greysquirrel175943

matelodave said:

where is the main thermostat. If its in the hall and you turn the rad off then the boiler will run continuously. If the sts is in the hall then its controlling the whole house , so you need to ensure that the rad is turned on.

But in general if you turn a radiator off then you'll save some energy as you wont be heating that space however depending on the size of the rad it could use between 5-10p and hour if it was on continuously using gas. The equivalent for an electric radiator could be 21-42p/hour, again if it was on continuously.

Most heating systems are thermostatically  controlled and, assuming that the rad is big enough to heat the space, it wont be on continuously once the room is up to the set temperature

Thank you for your reply.

We have a hive thermostat and we keep it in the living room which is where we probably spend 80%  of our time when the heating is on.

So if a central heating radiator costs upto 10p an hour when on, then 1 hall and one landing radiator will be upto 20p per hour when. That seems like a good saving over the winter months.

djk-uk

If you keep the doors between rooms closed yes, it's not a lot but it all helps, you need to think about where you thermostat is, best to have it In The main room you use if you can.

Emmia

Hopefully you're ventilating your cold/unheated unused rooms to minimise any potential damp issues? 

markin

Every system needs 1 rad always open and that cant be closed, or you would have to fit a automatic bypass somewhere, so the pump and boiler can always circulate water.

FreeBear

Emmia said: Hopefully you're ventilating your cold/unheated unused rooms to minimise any potential damp issues? 

If I shut the doors on unheated rooms, they get ruddy cold. This leads to condensation and associated problems with mold. I set the hallway thermostat to maintain a minimum temperature (16°C) and leave internal doors open.

Petriix

It's pretty hard to measure because there are so many unmeasurable and uncontrollable variables. But, in principle, the smaller the volume of air you're heating, the less work the boiler has to do and the less gas it will burn. The success of this will ultimately depend on how much air leakage there is between the room(s) you intend to keep warm and the area you don't. The higher the temperature differential, the greater your savings.

An alternative strategy would be to turn the heating down/off and use a different method for just heating the space you're using. We often just light the wood burner and hide out in the living room. I'll then set the heating to a low temperature for the rest of the house (thermostat is in the dining room). 

BUFF

Do you have TRVs on these rads? If so, turn them down to say 1.
If not, consider installing them.