Wasting money heating one room?

doodling

Hi,

There are a whole load of interrelated factors at play:

1. The radiators in a room will be sized to heat that room on the assumption that adjacent rooms are heated.  This might mean that they can't get a room to the desired temperature if an adjacent room is not heated. 

2. There will be a minimum load that the boiler will be happy with - this is heavily dependsnt on the overall design if the heating system and without a lot of detail no-one here can comment.  It is unlikely that this would cause issues so I wouldn't worry about it.

3. Partially heating a house will tend to drive moisture to unheated rooms.  This means that it is much more important to control moisture generated by cooking and bathing and have a little ventilation in unheated rooms.

4. Reducing the number of rooms to be heated will always reduce gas consumption but note (1) above.

5. I don't think it is applicable in this case but if your thermostat ends up in an unheated location then you will end up overheating some rooms and running the boiler when it is not required.

In short, the cheapest thing for your parents to do is to use gas rather than electricity as it is cheaper - your Dad should be able to understand that.

I have a large house with a big (27 radiators) heating system. I wouldn't be able to afford to heat all rooms all the time, heating only those in use works fine and saves money.  I've invested substantially (> £1500) in controls which allow me to automate that - I expect to save at least half the cost this year alone.

Spoonie_Turtle

Just a point here - you say their bills are a few hundred pounds per month.  Is that their actual bill, or the Direct Debit amount?  Is the few hundred pounds based on actual meter readings or estimates? 

Even if they have smart meters some companies don't use the actual readings and still estimate them, for some unknown reason.  They'd have to check their bill to see what letter is next to the readings used.

_Jem_

In a previous home I started off with heating just one room that didn't go too well, i noticed i was getting mould upstairs in the bedrooms after that i have always heated all rooms. 

MikeJXE

I can't see anywhere it says the size of property. For what it's worth I live alone in a 2 bed 1st floor flat, the flat below me is mostly unoccupied,  I don't go out much and mainly wear pyjamas and a dressing gown in doors, I have 6 radiators in 5 rooms, none are switched off, no doors are closed. I don't use the programmer I have the heating on when I can feel a chill. I don't cook with gas. For the month of November it was on maybe half hour  2 or 3  times a day, heating and hot water. My usage was 511kWh which equates to about £52, say £60 inc standing charge. I can't imagine a bill of several hundred a month 

L_a_y_l_a

The house was built in the 60s, they looked at their insulation and got extra, and it is 3 bedrooms, study and conservatory.

They have indeed had mould, my dad did get a check done in case of a leak, and they get condensation on windows. I can smell damp in a few rooms, and something they gave me smells of that now in my place.

The bills are based on readings, my dad updates them.

InvertedVee

Good advice from @doodling above.

The problem with leaving some rooms unheated by their own radiators is that they will be heated by the radiators in other rooms. Heat will flow through the house from warm rooms to cold rooms. And with little opportunity to give its heat away, the water in the system will return to the boiler at a higher temperature, leading to inefficiency and stress on the system components. There is likely to be more draughts around the house too.

In a compact, well-insulated home, leaving radiators on to heat unused rooms can actually reduce the total amount of energy used. If the home is a different shape and if insulation is poor, that might be different. If the conservatory was a later addition and is well-insulated from adjacent rooms, it could be left unheated.

@L_a_y_l_a mentioned damp as well. That's a significant health risk and mould spores will travel throughout the house.

MikeJXE

Seems to me your elderly parents like me at 82 years old, would it it be better for them  if they moved to somewhere more modern, easier to look after and warmer. They might even  live longer 

L_a_y_l_a

There are indeed drafts. I am not sure how much mould there is, I suspect some behind some wallpaper, a visible part has been treated. They're not dirty people,  but don't have the sense smell they had when younger. If I can actually smell it in places, it makes me sad, because perhaps there's more trouble with that to come. 

I have been looking at some other posts too, re dehumidifiers, other homes, it's all very useful.

It does feel as if they've got all that water circulating, but just circulating in the pipes, when it could be going into the rooms, addressing these problems,  and work out cheaper. When there you can hear it circulating and I want to turn up the radiators but I get told off.

I will ask them again to do a trial, as from what has been written, it's not a resounding answer that it will definitely cost them more, with the drafts, damp, them bejng cold, possible strain on the system, etc.

Thank you, it's very hard not being allowed to help them with these things, they just don't want to listen, but moan and argue with each other about it, but I would get shouted at if I begged to change the settings.

I guess all families have their points of agreement and disagreement,  quirks, etc, although not all things are points which can affect health, like where you put the washing up liquid by the sink, that doesn't really matter.

Your kind answers have helped me get the confidence again to broach this with them, I was giving up.

InvertedVee

@L_a_y_l_a you've shown us the heartbreaking reality of all this. It's not just £££ and kWh, it's real lives and relationships. I hope things improve for your parents soon.

Spoonie_Turtle

I'm still confused by the large bills, especially if they have decent insulation.  Do you know if they pay a single supplier for both fuels?  If so, I wonder if the fan heater is contributing!  Or anything else they shouldn't need, such as an immersion heater.  Could lots of heat be escaping through the conservatory if the house is not insulated from it?

Someone above mentioned not being able to imagine such large bills.  We kind of can, because we're high electricity users with no gas ( = expensive) but they have gas and I just don't understand how they're using that much if their house is freezing.  Could it be that by keeping the fabric of the building cold the boiler is running full pelt for a long time to be able to heat up the one room?  I don't know.