Heating empty rooms

cathymerchant

Now the kids have left home we have five empty rooms.  Is it cheaper to turn the radiators off and close the doors when the heating is on?

Thanks
Cathy

[Deleted User]

cathymerchant said:

Now the kids have left home we have five empty rooms.  Is it cheaper to turn the radiators off and close the doors when the heating is on?

Thanks
Cathy

Have you got TRVs?  It will normally be cheaper to turn those right down (they have an "anti-freeze" setting) and close the doors.

BUFF

In terms of paying just for your energy it should be.
However, long term it may not be good for the building fabric depending upon construction.
As already mentioned above you could turn the TRVs down to a lower setting (frost or * is usually ~7C, 1 ~10C & 2~15C - you can of course set it in between e.g. 1.5) in the unoccupied rooms & close the doors.

Alnat1

Three unused bedrooms now in our house, TRVs on 1 (10C-ish) in the two SW facing rooms and 1.5 in the NE facing room, main bathroom also has TRV on 1 as we use en suite to shower.

I am going to do a test day with the SW bedrooms heated as the living room/kitchen below might be losing heat faster if the bedrooms are colder.

InvertedVee

Often not a good idea to turn off radiators (for a lot of reasons) and it can actually cost more. See https://www.heatgeek.com/stop-turning-off-radiators-in-unused-rooms-it-costs-more/

cathymerchant

Really helpful information from everyone thanks.  We have TRVs in all the rooms but I hadn't thought to leave them on 1 or 2.  This is what I'll do.

k_man

cathymerchant said:

Really helpful information from everyone thanks.  We have TRVs in all the rooms but I hadn't thought to leave them on 1 or 2.  This is what I'll do.

Depending on the TRV, a setting of 2 could be up to 17°C, which may be higher than you want.

Max68

I left the radiator on really low in my spare bedroom long term.  Did a bit of a clean up last week and pulled the bed out to do a hoover and saw bobbly wallpaper which was damp.  Have a mate coming round at the weekend to help me cut a square of wallpaper off to see how much damage there is underneath.  Hopefully the good news is that since I've pulled the bed out improving air flow and increased the thermostat on the radiator, whilst still cold on that external wall it is at least now dry, so fingers crossed.  This is what I find a little unnerving when I see so many official bits of advice to save money by heating the person and not the room.  For sure there is a time and place for that and it does depend on the house but in mine certainly it seems like it would only cause more expensive problems in future.

RelievedSheff

We heat the whole house to a consistent temperature so that there are no cold spots in the house. Even the bedrooms and bathroom that we don't use.

We have tried turning the TRV's down in the rooms we don't use but the colder rooms seemed to suck out the warmth from the warmer rooms. It feels much more comfortable to heat the whole house and for a negligible cost. There was no discernible difference in gas consumption. 

sandy700

RelievedSheff said:

We heat the whole house to a consistent temperature so that there are no cold spots in the house. Even the bedrooms and bathroom that we don't use.

We have tried turning the TRV's down in the rooms we don't use but the colder rooms seemed to suck out the warmth from the warmer rooms. It feels much more comfortable to heat the whole house and for a negligible cost. There was no discernible difference in gas consumption. 

I've found that as well, the upstairs bedrooms are getting the heat from downstairs as there is no insulation between the downstairs ceiling and upstairs bedroom floors.

When we had incandescent lights downstairs (150 watt bulb) you could feel a slight warmth on the floor above the light. 

JGB1955

We have 3 'spare' bedrooms but are now leaving all of the upstairs doors open 24/7, otherwise the rooms get to smelling a bit 'damp'.  Better to get the air flowing around all of the rooms  (with windows on 'the latch') the whole year around.