Going on holiday for 10 days - heating off, or set a minimum temperature?

Astria

silverwhistle said:

Most winters I hardly use my GCH and rely on the woodburner, but when I go away on winter skiing holidays in the coldest part of the year I actually turn the heating on low (maybe 12?) and open the loft hatch. As a mid terrace in Hampshire (with a large S facing window) I hardly use any gas for the two weeks away although without the stove the house does get cooler. When I get home I light the fire and turn the GCH up to heat the fabric up. The gas used is insignificant.

Out of interest, why do you open the loft hatch?

chris_n

k_man said:

chris_n said:

k_man said:

Astria said:

What_time_is_it said:

Astria said:

I would set it to maintain an inside temperature of at least 10 - 12c.

Before you decide I'd check your home insurance as some specify minimum temperature requirements to provide cover.

How would they know?

They wouldn't, unless you made a claim for damage caused by low temperatures.

Considering we are not expecting freezing temperatures then if you set your thermostat at something like 10c then the heating shouldn't come on anyway, so it won't cost any more than leaving it off.

And weather forecasts can change over 10 days too.
There is no real downside of leaving on, but at a low temperature just in case.

SAC2334 said:

Off for me too as no chance of hitting sub zero unless you live high up in Northern Scotland ,
 Electric on only for the fridge/freezer/alarms .Water stop !!!!!! also turned off .

If there is no chance of hitting sub zero, why turn off the water stop?

chris_n said:

If your house is going to get down to 10 degrees over the course of 10 days with the temperatures forecast you need to have a serious look at your insulation and draught proofing! 

Current forecast for Newcastle upon Tyne (an example location in northern England) over the next 2 weeks is low of 2 or 3C and high of 8 or 9.
Over 10 days, with no heating, I think many houses would get down towards 10C.

When in UK I lived near Newcastle,  for 7 years I worked away in winter,  left house Nov to April. Heating was always left on at 12 degrees, most years it didn't come on. If it did get close to 12 I would usually turn it on for a couple of hours during the day. This was a 1970's semi.
I would turn the water off, leaks can occur for reasons other than freezing. 

You may well have been helped by the heating in the other semi. Or lucky aspect for passive solar via windows.

No windows on Southern aspect apart from 1200mm square frosted bathroom window, a small frosted window either side of the front door and a tiny frosted window in the door.

diystarter7

It's a risk in this of the year as these weather predictions as as trustworthy as Liz Truss and at best guesswork after a period of 24 hours. Leave it on.  If you or anyone goes in really cold weather, its not just about leaving it on as heating/boiler can break down as did of a friend that went to India for 4 weeks just before Xmas - we had a really cold winter he lived up north. He asked no one to check. It was a detached house. He came back to a gutted house where heating/boiler failed and burst tank in loft dmaged the house top to bottom and he was not insured.

If we were to go away in winter, we'd get someone to check every few days but these days you have secirty cams etc and we have moton sensors inside the house that take pics for alarm if if yo want to view via app so its different but get someone to check as well if it turns very cold.

Ally_E.

If you have any house plants you need to keep the temperature at 12-16C for them depending on species

Magnitio

You may also want to consider that many fridges and freezers do not operate correctly when the temperature in the house is below 10 degrees.

silverwhistle

Astria said:

Out of interest, why do you open the loft hatch?

To avoid freezing of the tanks and pipework up there. I've since installed insulation under the rafters and that has made a difference so would probably not bother in future. With good insulation over the joists not much heat gets up there.

lohr500

Whenever we go away for more than a few days, I always turn off the water and drain down the hot and cold water (twin header tanks as it is a very old fashioned setup!!).

I switch off the water heating on the Hive App the day before to minimise wasting any hot water in the cylinder, but leave the Hive room thermostat in frost mode just in case there is an unpredicted cold spell.

We live in a very old property with ancient plumbing and have suffered a number of leaking pipes over the years due to acidic water eating away at the pipes. Our water is from a spring supply and the previous house owners did nothing to correct the acidity of the water. After we moved in, I took steps to sort out the acidity, but unfortunately the damage was done to some of the copper piping 

Chances are there wouldn't be a leak, but I would rather come back from holiday to a dry house than one that had been flooded from a burst pipe. It only takes a few minutes to drain everything down, so no big deal. And if I plan when to switch off the water heating it means there isn't a lot of hot water going to waste down the plug hole