Heat one room only, using gas combi boiler. Wasteful?

Astria

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Astria said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Today I’m trying the low level heat in each room and will look after 24 hours, suspect it will increase my gas use a lot even if the place is more pleasant to be in the lack of insulation to external walls means it will always leach heat out unless I refit the whole house, not something I can contemplate right now hence my one cosy room idea!

To be honest, that's the best way of finding out whats the best/cheapest way - every property is different so there's lots of theory about what "should" be best, but the only way of proving the best is to see how much gas you use in similar scenarios. Try both multiple times and average out the results. Always go for at least 12 - 24 hours as an hour means nothing and for comparison always try and ensure similar outside environment (same temperature, rain, wind).

And the results are in, last 24 hours CH with all radiators on a little except one turned up to comfort level in sitting room, cost £3.92.
My usual Sitting Room to comfort level and hardly any or rads off in other rooms £1.24 a day.

Will stick with my heat one room regime for now and spend more time in the kitchen which is easier to heat when it really turns cold.

I’ve always lived frugally but now it’s imperative.

Still a work in progress I don’t claim all the answers but I know this house very well and I’m canny.

I will do another 24 hour trial with my one room heat regime as it’s colder now than my average since October but it won’t be £3.92 I doubt!

Done the next 24 hour period heating one room and a little in hallway and kitchen.
£2.73.

Obviously the mild weather average for October to 20th November of £1.24 was because it wasn’t that cold!

£3.92 previous 24 hours with all 8 rads on a little and one room turned up to comfort level, that is good for boiler health by not having to cycle and better for the building fabric, cost +£1.19 a day for the privilege but objectively it did make the whole house feel more comfortable and not such a pronounced jolt leaving a warm sitting room straight into the ice age which is crap when you own a house and can’t use parts of it unless you freeze or have to plan things if using other rooms with no spontaneity.

I thought it would be a bigger differential. My only hope to reduce costs is to swap the difficult to heat sitting room for more time in the kitchen until March/April. Done it before, it’s OK.

The ‘extra’ cost to keep all rads on at least a little isn’t that much more for what you get, it’s simply the price of gas is stupidly crushingly high due to the energy ‘market’ and the way it’s been set up and run which we have no real control over.

Yes, yesterday cost me £4.50, which scared me a little considering it wasn't that cold outside, but then I remember that last year it would have cost about £1 - £1.50 !

When it gets colder it might actually become cheaper to drive to work rather than WFH, but then again, it'll still cost similar to bring the house upto 18c for when I get home at night, so...

Yorkshire_Pud

Beginning to wish I had got an old fashioned but new gas boiler with header tank etc instead of a combi in 2018 after my 40 year old Potterton neetaheat warhorse was junked.

The old boilers were less efficient but it was OK to turn on or off at Will without damage whereas the combi seems a lot more demanding in terms of how it is used if it is not to potentially get problems. It should be on most of the time and rads in unused rooms should be on at a level, the backstop setting, only about 3 degC less than main use rooms, i.e. 18 and 21deg.

This allows the combi boiler to work at its optimum but it has to be an expensive option overall in a house with low occupancy, room use and time spent at home? Like being a slave to the combi or with on/off use it deteriorates, scales up, corrodes, seals degrade etc!!

I got a lot of the technical info from the heat geek YouTube videos.

I either have the combi on in the Winter 24/7 so it runs efficiently but hard to imaging it not costing massively more than my usual on/off at my whim, when I’m in, off from 9pm to 7am regime that I’ve done for the last five years with no combi boiler breakdowns yet. As I’m running the combi in the wrong way technically I should expect it will fail prematurely?

The_Fat_Controller

I don't know why you think seals will fail earlier, there is a lot of nonsense online.

If the system is properly protected with a filter and inhibitor added then a combi will be no more at risk than any other system.

I do not heat unused rooms at all, the TRVs are set to the frost setting, however the house has good insulation and double glazing.

My main room has both radiators set to fully open (TRVs removed) and the room thermostat controls the temperature as that is where I am all day.

The bedroom and ensuite shower room TRVs are set to achieve around 18c.

The thermostat in my main room is set at 22c so the boiler comes on as necessary and maintains the room temperature to within 0.5c

I haven't had a boiler breakdown in 8 years.

BUFF

Yorkshire_Pud said:

The old boilers were less efficient but it was OK to turn on or off at Will without damage whereas the combi seems a lot more demanding in terms of how it is used if it is not to potentially get problems. It should be on most of the time and rads in unused rooms should be on at a level, the backstop setting, only about 3 degC less than main use rooms, i.e. 18 and 21deg.

This allows the combi boiler to work at its optimum but it has to be an expensive option overall in a house with low occupancy, room use and time spent at home? Like being a slave to the combi or with on/off use it deteriorates, scales up, corrodes, seals degrade etc!!

I have a 14 year old condensing combi. In Winter it is usually set to CH "on" (subject to room 'stat) 6-9am & then 6-10pm but of course it doesn't actually fire for 100% of those hours. 
I do run at a low flow temp,  a "main" room temp that most people would probably find cool & unused rooms are heated to a lower level.
Hasn't had a break down yet. I do think that the expansion vessel is on the way out but that would be the case with any sealed system whether it was a combi or system boiler.

Yorkshire_Pud

The_Fat_Controller said:

I don't know why you think seals will fail earlier, there is a lot of nonsense online.

If the system is properly protected with a filter and inhibitor added then a combi will be no more at risk than any other system.

I do not heat unused rooms at all, the TRVs are set to the frost setting, however the house has good insulation and double glazing.

My main room has both radiators set to fully open (TRVs removed) and the room thermostat controls the temperature as that is where I am all day.

The bedroom and ensuite shower room TRVs are set to achieve around 18c.

The thermostat in my main room is set at 22c so the boiler comes on as necessary and maintains the room temperature to within 0.5c

I haven't had a boiler breakdown in 8 years.

It was the heating engineer who told me the seal, one major one has to be replaced after about seven years or water can spew out although he didn’t relate that to it being a combi more his experience servicing worcester Bosch combi he’s an honest bloke sonI believe him. Other info about seals going corrosion is indeed from the internet and specifically the heat geek video. I’m not to know either way what’s true and what isn’t and what is there to scare you and make you run your system 24/7 when you just wanted a few hours a day.

Ive now taken the radical decision to read the boiler manual that I’ve not read fully enough and any queries I can then ask the manufacturer. No way am I running my system all day and all night and heating all the space I don’t  use! Even if the theory from the heat geek  is it will save me money and boiler repairs!

Im assuming you have a combi boiler too?

Yorkshire_Pud

BUFF said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

The old boilers were less efficient but it was OK to turn on or off at Will without damage whereas the combi seems a lot more demanding in terms of how it is used if it is not to potentially get problems. It should be on most of the time and rads in unused rooms should be on at a level, the backstop setting, only about 3 degC less than main use rooms, i.e. 18 and 21deg.

This allows the combi boiler to work at its optimum but it has to be an expensive option overall in a house with low occupancy, room use and time spent at home? Like being a slave to the combi or with on/off use it deteriorates, scales up, corrodes, seals degrade etc!!

I have a 14 year old condensing combi. In Winter it is usually set to CH "on" (subject to room 'stat) 6-9am & then 6-10pm but of course it doesn't actually fire for 100% of those hours. 
I do run at a low flow temp,  a "main" room temp that most people would probably find cool & unused rooms are heated to a lower level.
Hasn't had a break down yet. I do think that the expansion vessel is on the way out but that would be the case with any sealed system whether it was a combi or system boiler.

Sounds similar to my regime on two hours in morning and five hours evening plus any other time I’m in and want more heat I turn to on then off when warm enough which I prefer to constant dry heat. Like wide no boiler problems after five years of ‘doing it wrong’. Unlike the setback temp being more than my top single room temp I set my unused room thermostats at a fraction above the frost stat setting virtually nothing so that won’t satisfy the heat geek! 

I still can’t believe that the so called efficiency of having the boiler running all the time gives a energy use saving over my limited use higher energy use for shorter periods of time regime, there’s just too big a difference.

The heat geek also claims that high thermal mass houses, like mine thick stone walls uninsulated soak up some heat and give it back to the building later increasing room temperature, that’s a nice idea but I think the wall acts as a thermal bridge to the outside being a colder gradient so the warmth from the wall goes outside not back in.

Im off to the supermarket soon, it’s only a mile away but I’m going to drive 15 miles each way up and down the motorway at a constant speed so that my mpg is cheaper than if I just make the one mile trip where the engine has to work harder and the fuel consumption is increased (but I’ve just spent much more on petrol to achieve the improved reduction in engine wear and mpg) 😊