Overnight heating??

KxMx

No, I'm in bed so it's not needed in my view.
My timer is set for the heating to come on around 20 minutes before I am due to get up.
I have increased that temporarily this week with the upcoming colder weather. 

mmmmikey

elsien said:

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.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. For me, 18C is a minimum and I'm not really comfortable sitting around unless it's 21C. Sure, you can put extra layers on but hats and gloves for me are for outside use. My approach to economy is to localise the heating to the room I'm using, so during the day I'll either light the woodburner in the lounge if I'm going to be in all day, or use the gas cabinet heater in the kitchen/dining room if I'm in and out. The woodburner is lit every evening and stoked up at bedtime to minimise the need for extra heating overnight. I'll definitely have the heating on overnight for the next few nights - one of the advantages of Economy 7 is cheap night time heating. We're all different though and each to their own - I noticed that the postman was still wearing shorts this morning, rather him than me

drt1710

I was always told by a family plumber/heating engineer that leaving the heating on 24/7 worked out cheaper, something to do with the boiler not having to heat up the house massively first thing in the morning.  But in recent years, we've managed more with heating going off at 10pm and coming on at 6am to get up at 7am
Martin Lewis and MSE actually state that you should only have the heating on when you need it, and if I'm in my nice warm bed I don't need the heating on??? (https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/energy-saving-myths/)
On a separate note, some of you say you have a lower heating temperature at night that in the day, how do you manage this?
Cheers

BooJewels

I too remember pre CH times and have always said that I don't want to go back to how that felt. So whilst I'm trying to be sensible with my fuel use, I think I've earned the right to be comfortable and can afford to be.  If nothing else, BG keep returning any credit I build up, so I've always put it away and ring fenced it for my gas bill, so my winter bills have already been budgeted for in previous years and I've barely dipped into it, so I have a decent buffer.

I have my heating on all day at 18C and 19C later in an evening and overnight it usually goes off, as I just have it at frost protect of 7C.  If we had a really cold snap I'd manually override it to something like 14 or 15C.  The last few mornings I've woken before it's come on and manually advanced it on in the Hive app and it's been showing the temp of the thermostat at 16.1C - so it's not getting that cold overnight inside.

If nothing else, I really don't like hearing the heating overnight - being an old house (new boiler though) the pipes click and pop a lot, as they heat and cool and there are some that go right behind my headboard.  I'm not however prepared to give up my electric blanket (only used to pre-heat the bed).

BUFF

drt1710 said:

On a separate note, some of you say you have a lower heating temperature at night that in the day, how do you manage this?

You can do it manually or some thermostats will allow you to set different temps. for different time periods.

drt1710

BooJewels said:

BG keep returning any credit I build up, so I've always put it away and ring fenced it for my gas bill, so my winter bills have already been budgeted for in previous years and I've barely dipped into it, so I have a decent buffer.

BG keep returning your credit? Why on earth would they do that?
I'm with Octopus, and over the last couple of years, with my overpayments each month, and Warm Home Discounts, and each time I get any Cost Of Living Payment etc, plus the £66 pm extra (I left my DD as it was) I'm now nearly £1000 in credit, so when my current fixed deal ends, or If I hit really bad times, I have a comfortable cushion.

victor2

This monster thread started 10 years ago, and illustrated the strong differences in opinions between those who argued for having the heating on constantly and those who didn't...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4327195/energy-myth-busting-is-it-cheaper-to-have-heating-on-all-day/p1

Longwalker

Thankfully I dont like to be hot in bed so no heating and only a 4.5 tog  duvet, and window open. My concession to the winter weather is change the sheets to brushed cotton 

Only let the heating on at night when we have a prolonged spell of minus temps. One year we had 3 weeks of nighttime temps of -16 and below so the heating came on for short bursts in the night

macman

drt1710 said:

I was always told by a family plumber/heating engineer that leaving the heating on 24/7 worked out cheaper, something to do with the boiler not having to heat up the house massively first thing in the morning.  But in recent years, we've managed more with heating going off at 10pm and coming on at 6am to get up at 7am
Martin Lewis and MSE actually state that you should only have the heating on when you need it, and if I'm in my nice warm bed I don't need the heating on??? (https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/energy-saving-myths/)
On a separate note, some of you say you have a lower heating temperature at night that in the day, how do you manage this?
Cheers

I'm afraid that your family heating engineer is completely deluded in this assertion: burning gas all night during the coldest hours will cost far more than lifting it from the ambient temp in the morning. Do you keep your kettle boiling 24/7 rather than heat water from cold?
All modern programmers allow you to set several different time periods per day.

BooJewels

drt1710 said:

BooJewels said:

BG keep returning any credit I build up, so I've always put it away and ring fenced it for my gas bill, so my winter bills have already been budgeted for in previous years and I've barely dipped into it, so I have a decent buffer.

BG keep returning your credit? Why on earth would they do that?

Largely because they're stupid.  I've had a perpetual problem over many years of them underestimating my usage (despite giving monthly meter readings) and consequently reducing my DD and refunding any credit over about £200. So I put it aside and any time I get a debit after a bill, I clear it with a manual payment from my saved refunds and we start from zero again.  I've only stuck with them this long, because after one of my formal complaints, they put me on a very good fix which has only ended this summer.  And still didn't fix the problem.  I do my own budgeting and largely ignore them.