Is heating the home to 18oC the new 20oC?

Mstty

FreeBear said:

Mstty said: We also have a multi fuel burner in the Lounge so any tips here on what is cheapest and gives best heat out put for 4 hours will be great.

Well seasoned oak lasts a long time and one log will give off a decent amount of heat. But logs are going up in price, along with everything else....

I'll bung a few shovels of StoveHeat (smokeless coal) on the grate, and then light some kindling & small logs on top. Once going, a couple of larger logs lasts most of the evening. Downside is quite a bit of ash that can't be used on the garden.

Cheers will try that we  have some smokeless coal left by the previous owners 

Northern_Wanderer

Possibly....I had been setting my thermostat to 19.5, then 19, now 18. But, it is warmer outside now (obvs heating not on much now) and I'm not sure I will cope with 18C in proper middle of winter.

Thrugelmir

Always have put extra layers on, worn warmer clothes in winter.  Why waste money on energy when there's no need? 

LADYXXMACBETH

Wow. I always had my thermostat at 18c and after a bill in Jan for the 3 months of £611 I turned it to 14c. In the last month I've turned it off except for one day when I could see my breath in the house, thought I should put it on. 
My bf has his house at 15c 

matelodave

Personally I reckon the temperature you can get away with is directly proportion to the amount of grief that you get from SWMBO. Mines a chilly mortal and will always tweak the stats upwards when she thinks I don't notice.

We generally have around 17-18 degrees in most of the place but 20 in the lounge and study. I've been backing the heatpump weather compensation until we are just a bit chilly but as we've also got underfloor heating it can take a long time to recover if the temperature drops suddenly so there's got to be a happy balance.

As we are at home all day the system generally just idles away at a flow temp of around 30-35 degrees with the occasional excursion to around 40 when it gets very cold outside.The advantage of underfloor heating is that there aren't any cold drafts and the floor does tend to keep your feet warmer than radiators

Mstty

matelodave said:

Personally I reckon the temperature you can get away with is directly proportion to the amount of grief that you get from SWMBO. Mines a chilly mortal and will always tweak the stats upwards when she thinks I don't notice.

We generally have around 17-18 degrees in most of the place but 20 in the lounge and study. I've been backing the heatpump weather compensation until we are just a bit chilly but as we've also got underfloor heating it can take a long time to recover if the temperature drops suddenly so there's got to be a happy balance.

As we are at home all day the system generally just idles away at a flow temp of around 30-35 degrees with the occasional excursion to around 40 when it gets very cold outside.The advantage of underfloor heating is that there aren't any cold drafts and the floor does tend to keep your feet warmer than radiators

You've hit the nail on the head there with SWMBO lol.

We are just working out our ASHP having inherited it from the previous owners and in March I finally got round to changing it from me manually guessing each day what temp to set it at to the compensation curve. Which when I could get away with it ran it at -3oC from the curve settings.

How have you found yours on cost and energy usage and do you just leave it on 24/7 or switch it off downstairs overnight?

THX_1138_4EB

I've now had several winters without turning on the heating at all. Where I live in North-West England, in a mid-terrace house, the temperatured reached a low of 12 °C (11 in the kitchen). I wear so many layers that I'd be embarrased to answer the door.

Mould is definitely not an issue unless other factors are at play leading to condensation; it's the damp that lets mould grow. We ventilate the bathroom with the window open until mirrors are clear of steam. We dry clothes indoors but with a dehumidifier blowing on them, in an upstairs room where it's always warmer. Cooking with lids on pans reduces the energy needed to maintain a temperature and reduces the water evaporating into the air (those two things are directly related).

You can get cheap heated clothing that plugs into a USB powerbank but they're limited to 10 W which is the limit of the majority of USB powerbank outputs. More powerful electrically-heated clothing is much more expensive. I intend to make my own using some carbon fiber to make the heating elements.

I've also got some padded outdoor overalls which are pretty warm and I've heard wearable sleeping bags are similar.

Central heating is for the bourgeoisie, now.

matelodave

Mstty said:

matelodave said:

Personally I reckon the temperature you can get away with is directly proportion to the amount of grief that you get from SWMBO. Mines a chilly mortal and will always tweak the stats upwards when she thinks I don't notice.

We generally have around 17-18 degrees in most of the place but 20 in the lounge and study. I've been backing the heatpump weather compensation until we are just a bit chilly but as we've also got underfloor heating it can take a long time to recover if the temperature drops suddenly so there's got to be a happy balance.

As we are at home all day the system generally just idles away at a flow temp of around 30-35 degrees with the occasional excursion to around 40 when it gets very cold outside.The advantage of underfloor heating is that there aren't any cold drafts and the floor does tend to keep your feet warmer than radiators

You've hit the nail on the head there with SWMBO lol.

We are just working out our ASHP having inherited it from the previous owners and in March I finally got round to changing it from me manually guessing each day what temp to set it at to the compensation curve. Which when I could get away with it ran it at -3oC from the curve settings.

How have you found yours on cost and energy usage and do you just leave it on 24/7 or switch it off downstairs overnight?

We've had our Daikin 11kw heat pump for twelve years and it's certainly exceeded my expectations in terms of performance and running costs so I'm more than happy with it.

We run it virtually 24/7 in the winter months and just turn the temp down a couple of degrees overnight. Because we have underfloor heating it is very slow to respond and if we let the place get cold in takes hours or even days to recover unless I turn it right up.

It took us the whole of our first winter with it to get it tweaked to our satisfaction and now I just generally let it get on with it although as I said above I've been backing it off a bit  over the past couple of months to try an optimise it a bit more.

I've tried it on  a fixed temp and it certainly uses more energy than when the weather compensation is active and the house temp fluctuates a lot more. I might have another tweak of the compensation slope rather than just backing it off when next winter comes. I've got 12 years worth of weekly energy consumption figures which does help me anticipate my energy profile.

We only heat the water to  once a day for an hour or so which gives us all we need, there are only two of us and we don't stand in the shower for hours on end. (it does boost to 60 once a week to sterilise it)

We use around 7500-8000kwh of leccy a year of which about 4000kwh is the heatpump 

Cost wise it's been pretty good until Symbio fell off the twig last year as we'd always managed to get away with low cost leccy. However since it all fell to bits last year our bill has gone up from around £1000 a year to around £2400 with an anticipation of worse to come in October but there's not a lot we can do about it.

Reed_Richards

I have two thermostats in my living room.  Their readings differ by at least 1 degree (Celcius).  So I don't think we ever know quite what temperature we are heating our homes to.  Personally I use a night-time set-back which effectively turns the heating off for about 6 hours unless it's very cold outside.  During the day I gradually raise the temperature so it is warmest in the evening when we are more sedentary.  

Mstty

matelodave said:

Mstty said:

matelodave said:

Personally I reckon the temperature you can get away with is directly proportion to the amount of grief that you get from SWMBO. Mines a chilly mortal and will always tweak the stats upwards when she thinks I don't notice.

We generally have around 17-18 degrees in most of the place but 20 in the lounge and study. I've been backing the heatpump weather compensation until we are just a bit chilly but as we've also got underfloor heating it can take a long time to recover if the temperature drops suddenly so there's got to be a happy balance.

As we are at home all day the system generally just idles away at a flow temp of around 30-35 degrees with the occasional excursion to around 40 when it gets very cold outside.The advantage of underfloor heating is that there aren't any cold drafts and the floor does tend to keep your feet warmer than radiators

You've hit the nail on the head there with SWMBO lol.

We are just working out our ASHP having inherited it from the previous owners and in March I finally got round to changing it from me manually guessing each day what temp to set it at to the compensation curve. Which when I could get away with it ran it at -3oC from the curve settings.

How have you found yours on cost and energy usage and do you just leave it on 24/7 or switch it off downstairs overnight?

We've had our Daikin 11kw heat pump for twelve years and it's certainly exceeded my expectations in terms of performance and running costs so I'm more than happy with it.

We run it virtually 24/7 in the winter months and just turn the temp down a couple of degrees overnight. Because we have underfloor heating it is very slow to respond and if we let the place get cold in takes hours or even days to recover unless I turn it right up.

It took us the whole of our first winter with it to get it tweaked to our satisfaction and now I just generally let it get on with it although as I said above I've been backing it off a bit  over the past couple of months to try an optimise it a bit more.

I've tried it on  a fixed temp and it certainly uses more energy than when the weather compensation is active and the house temp fluctuates a lot more. I might have another tweak of the compensation slope rather than just backing it off when next winter comes. I've got 12 years worth of weekly energy consumption figures which does help me anticipate my energy profile.

We only heat the water to  once a day for an hour or so which gives us all we need, there are only two of us and we don't stand in the shower for hours on end. (it does boost to 60 once a week to sterilise it)

We use around 7500-8000kwh of leccy a year of which about 4000kwh is the heatpump 

Cost wise it's been pretty good until Symbio fell off the twig last year as we'd always managed to get away with low cost leccy. However since it all fell to bits last year our bill has gone up from around £1000 a year to around £2400 with an anticipation of worse to come in October but there's not a lot we can do about it.

That's great info cheers. Same here we were with Symbio at 14p kWh and it seemed to good to be true.....it was lol

House is 7 years old but we've only been here the past 10 months. Seems a very similar setup underfloor heating that if I get the settings wrong took an age to heat back up.gooe job we have the backup multi fuel burner when those occur. Rough calculations suggest 3800-4200 kWh here for the ASHP for the yeah and again similar setup 1 hour of hot water and Legionella 60oC burn once a week.

Next step for me is to also have a look at the compensation curve as we generally run it -1 to -3 of its default curve but that can be changed I think.

Doesn't sound like we are a million miles off just a few tweaks for this winter 👍