Overnight heating??

nrmsmith

I’ve been surprised, reading these forum topics, finding out how many people seem to run their central heating overnight albeit at a lower temperature.  I was brought up in a household where parents never had the heating on overnight, even in the middle of winter when it got very cold overnight; and I have adopted this same paradigm.   

Mind you when I was a kid we had no central heating at all and no gas came to our village until the late 1960’s; so I remember the ice fronds on the inside of the (non) double glazed bedroom windows first thing winter mornings!!

What are other members attitudes to overnight central heating?

victor2

I too remember rubbing the ice off the inside of the bedroom windows on a cold winter morning!

Our central heating goes off overnight, although I might extend the night-time run if the grandchildren are staying over.

I quite enjoy hearing the clicking of the pipes as the heating comes on first thing in the morning and warms the house up.

elsien

Mine stays on overnight at a lower temperature. I too recall the days of no central heating and ice on the windows and I really don’t want to go back to those days unless I absolutely have to.
I don’t want to be wearing gloves in bed so that I can read without my hands getting chilblains or waking up with a cold nose or freezing my bits off when I want to go to the toilet in the night.

Yes people used to do it and they survived. But it’s not comfortable and I don’t want to so as long as I can afford it I’m not going to.

Sometimes this forum feels like a bit of a race to the bottom. It’s not a competition and I just prefer to be comfortable.

tacpot12

It makes sense to run the heating overnight when the outside temperature is below freezing as you run the risk of pipes freezing otherwise. Some boilers will come on anyway when their internal sensor detects the low temperature, but I think these are the exception rather than the rule. Such boilers are set to come at around 7C, as there is a thermal gradient between the inside of the house and the outside, and there will be pipes fixes to the inside of the external walls at points where it is hard for the heat in the house to reach them. So it might be 7C at your boiler, but only 2C behind your kitchen cabinets where the water pipes are. You don't want it to get down to freezing anywhere in the house.  

Setting your heating to come on overnight so that it stays at 7-10C overnight would seem sensible IF your home heats up quite quickly (i.e. you have large heat emitters). If your heat emitters are too small, then having it set at 15C will reduce the time that it takes for the house to feel warm, but note that this is about comfort, not efficiency. If you can stand the time it takes for the the house to get from 7C to 15C, you will save money by having the heating set to 7C.   

sevenhills

I recall Jack Frost on the bedroom windows. I have always understood that heating dries out the air, so it's better not to have it on overnight.
If you are going soft, you might want a little heat on cold mornings though. I am tight, so get ready quickly on cold mornings, no heating.

Olly_J

There's an interesting paper that compares the 3 main methods of heating timings and the difference it makes to usage

https://www.beama.org.uk/static/c8acda90-4bf0-4d1d-9f388667190a1c84/Salford-University-tests-to-establish-the-energy-savings-from-Prog-room-thermostats-2014.pdf

Alnat1

Our heating goes off at 10pm, about an hour before bedtime, and on again at 6.30am.

House has decent insulation and probably doesn't drop much below 13-14C overnight. 

BUFF

Mine is usually "off" 10PM-6AM. However, when minus temps (C) are expected, such as later this week, I will leave it "on" but at a low temp. as some of my systems pipes run in the solum & I am not sure how well insulated they all are.
As I run low flow temp. at those kind of outside temps I usually need to run the system for longer hours than normal anyway (Edwardian stone/brick building).

_Jem_

tacpot12 said:

It makes sense to run the heating overnight when the outside temperature is below freezing as you run the risk of pipes freezing otherwise. Some boilers will come on anyway when their internal sensor detects the low temperature, but I think these are the exception rather than the rule. Such boilers are set to come at around 7C, as there is a thermal gradient between the inside of the house and the outside, and there will be pipes fixes to the inside of the external walls at points where it is hard for the heat in the house to reach them. So it might be 7C at your boiler, but only 2C behind your kitchen cabinets where the water pipes are. You don't want it to get down to freezing anywhere in the house.  

Setting your heating to come on overnight so that it stays at 7-10C overnight would seem sensible IF your home heats up quite quickly (i.e. you have large heat emitters). If your heat emitters are too small, then having it set at 15C will reduce the time that it takes for the house to feel warm, but note that this is about comfort, not efficiency. If you can stand the time it takes for the the house to get from 7C to 15C, you will save money by having the heating set to 7C.   

Some room thermostats also have this feature, I have had two room thermostats with that feature. 

k_man

sevenhills said:

I recall Jack Frost on the bedroom windows. I have always understood that heating dries out the air, so it's better not to have it on overnight.
If you are going soft, you might want a little heat on cold mornings though. I am tight, so get ready quickly on cold mornings, no heating.

I remember hearing this quite a lot, does anyone have a scientific explanation?

As far as I can tell, while heating cool air reduces the RH, this should be the same whether the heating is in for short periods, or constantly.
If heating being on all the time dries the air, where does the moisture go?

macman

Warmer air holds more moisture in suspension.