Heating on 24/7 because of frost prevention measures?

ivoryandgold

We live in a rental with the boiler in the loft (bungalow). Since the weather has been so cold, the heating has kicked in and we’ve not been able to override it. We had a gas engineer out (wasn’t because of this, was already due to do a safety test) and he said it’s normal and it’s just the boilers frost prevention measures kicking in. 

Problem is, it has been kicking in from maybe midnight til noon and in the last two days it’s been on 24/7. We’ve turned the radiators down in the hopes it is helping but we’re still pumping out heat we don’t need. I still can’t get my head around this being normal? We’ve been conserving energy, only putting on the heating for two hours a day and over the past week we will have used more energy then we would in over a month. 

Can anyone give any tips on how to keep costs down? Is this the correct? I’m at a loss and at the point of so so stressed about this energy bill I’m stuggling go sleep listening to the boiler whiring. 

BUFF

is it a "cold" or "warm" loft? If the boiler is in an unheated space that is insulated from the heated rooms below & that space has dropped down to below ~5-7C he is probably correct.

I know that it doesn't help but everybody's heating bill for the last week is going to be considerably higher than the bills in  a very mild November.

ivoryandgold

It’s cold, it’s hardly insulated at all. The rest of the house could heat up to 30 degrees and it still wouldn’t touch where the boiler is. 

jrawle

The frost protection on a boiler is usually internal and monitors the water temperature inside the boiler. It would just heat this water to maybe 10 degrees then switch off. It doesn't require the whole loft to be heated. The feature is specifically designed to allow a boiler to be placed in an unheated loft or garage. I don't believe this can be the reason your heating is on continually. What sort of heating controls do you have in the house (thermostat, controller)? Maybe it's a faulty thermostat.

ivoryandgold

It’s overriding the thermostat. We got new batteries for it and have experimented with lowering it to below the internal temperature. From googling before the engineer came out, this is what I thought he would say (or that there was a problem with the valve). But he just said this was normal and was happening in his house too. He said it was ‘annoying’ but is the frost protection. 

macman

So why not put a thermometer into the loft and see what the night temp actually is? If it's dipping under 10C, that's your answer.
Perversely, the only way to stop this is to put a heat source into the loft near to the boiler, and make sure all the pipework leading from it is properly lagged. 
Something modest like this? Put a timer on it and run it during the hours the boiler is kicking in

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BUFF

do we know what make/model of boiler it is?
& programmer/room 'stat?

Apodemus

ivoryandgold said:

It’s cold, it’s hardly insulated at all. The rest of the house could heat up to 30 degrees and it still wouldn’t touch where the boiler is. 

These two statements are at odds with each other.  If you have poor insulation, then if you heat the house, the loft will see a rise in temperature, which may be what you need to do in your case.  By not heating your house to save energy, you might well be causing the very conditions in the loft space that are causing you to waste energy!

Qyburn

Sounds like the frost protection system on the boiler isn't designed or installed correctly. 

We have an outside boiler module and it's frost protection is controlled by two stats, it only comes on if the air temperature in the module is below 2 degrees, AND the return pipe is below 20 deg. Frost protection doesn't open either CH or DHW valves so it is just the boiler and bypass circuit that gets heated. The overall effect is that the boiler runs for just a couple of minutes once or twice a night.

It sounds like your frost protection is configured to open the heating valve as well, so it heats the whole house. And maybe it doesn't have the pipe stat and is going only by air temperature within the boiler housing.

You need to get the actual system checked, but you may have to be explicit that it's running much too much to be explained just by frost protection of the boiler.

Complain to the landlord and insist.

chris_n

Apodemus said:

ivoryandgold said:

It’s cold, it’s hardly insulated at all. The rest of the house could heat up to 30 degrees and it still wouldn’t touch where the boiler is. 

These two statements are at odds with each other. If you have poor insulation, then if you heat the house, the loft will see a rise in temperature, which may be what you need to do in your case. By not heating your house to save energy, you might well be causing the very conditions in the loft space that are causing you to waste energy!

Not really at odds, the loft space is normally significantly ventilated so the temperature will never go up in there anyway.

Sea_Shell

Is frost control a two stage process on modern condensing boilers?

We've heard ours in the early hours, but on checking the IHD in the morning it's not used any gas.

So assume it's just the pump to keep the water moving.

The boiler is in the integral garage.

Would it fire up the burners if it got even colder?