Turn heating on and off or leave on all the time?

Kirkmain

Please help settle a debate between me and the SiL

He has one of these smart apps to control his home central heating, Tado

Standard 1920s 3bed semi. Kitchen extension to the rear with velux windows. Triple glazed, plantation shutters on windows,  boarded loft, 20mm insulation on floating floor, draft stopper on front door etc etc..

Anyway, his app turns his central heating off everytime he pops out, even to the shop for a couple of minutes. His app detects when he is not there using his phone GPS and turns off the central heating, the house cools and reheats when he comes back.

I'm arguing in a well insulated home you should just keep the combi boiler running, rather than letting it turn on and off and on and off if he pops out. Its also more cost efficient to keep a warm house warm than to reheat a house that has cooled down?

Any thoughts?

MeteredOut

He's right. There was a multi-page discussion this on the board a month or so back discussing this very topic where some thought the other way. But, they're wrong.

(unless you're house is 100% efficient in storing heat, which none are, or the heating system is particularly inefficient in firing up/shutting down)

Assuming a thing cannot retain100% of its heat, it uses more energy to heat that thing and keep it at a constant temperature than it does to only heat it to that temperature whenever you want that thing heated. You can't change physics

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

Reed_Richards

Oh dear, not this one again!  I'm 95% in agreement with the first response from @MeteredOut and I had better leave it at that.

MeteredOut

Reed_Richards said:

Oh dear, not this one again!  I'm 95% in agreement with the first response from @MeteredOut and I had better leave it at that.

Probably best the mods close this and refer people back to the thread i linked above.

(but, about that 5%.... ) 

FreeBear

Kirkmain said: I'm arguing in a well insulated home you should just keep the combi boiler running, rather than letting it turn on and off and on and off if he pops out. Its also more cost efficient to keep a warm house warm than to reheat a house that has cooled down?

Running (and burning gas) or just turned on ready to fire up when the temperature drops below target ?

I'm fortunate that my house doesn't lose heat very fast, and I also get a significant boost from solar gain (when the sun is shining). Heating is set to 19°C from 08:00 through to 23:00 most days - Yesterday, the heating fired up for 25 minutes at 07:00 and didn't come on again for the rest of the day. OK, did light the stove in the lounge around 18:00 which helps to heat the rest of the house a little bit...

born_again

Never going to be a one size fits all answer....
Best they agree to disagree & do what they want.