Turning heating/boiler completely off during the night?

Flugelhorn

our house is fine - having lived in a draughty 4 storey edwardian pile, the modern house stays wonderfully warm. and cost a fraction to heat! heating just automatically clicks off at 9pm ish and on about 0630 - 

FreeBear

ThisIsWeird said:

Flugelhorn said:

I realise now reading these posts that we have a relatively old fashioned system even though the house is only 12 years old. Timer to switch heating on and off at specific times and a thermostat set to a single temperature, hence why the whole thing just goes off at night. Grew up with no central heating so happy to have it like this anyway + extra layers of bedding and jamas

The Hive and other 'Smart' systems won't keep your house warmer, but could save you money. It largely does this, tho', by guarding you from forgetting (or not bothering!) to turn the heating off at times.

Some claim 25-30% saving with a smart thermostat, but that is an unrealistic number. More conservative research suggests up to 10% can be saved. When I installed my system, I managed around a 5% reduction in gas consumption with an old Baxi back boiler (turning the gas off during the summer saved another chunk of gas).

Now that I have a new modulating condensing boiler, early indications suggest that I'm heating more without using extra gas. Part of this is down to a more efficient boiler, the remainder, a smarter control.

Le_Kirk

andre_xs said:

Apologies for the late reply, I just wanted to thank you all. Turning on Eco mode indeed did the trick. It now does take a bit longer for warm water to come, but it's really not much longer, so no problem at all.

Did you mean turning OFF eco mode?

Sarahspangles

ThisIsWeird said:

The Hive and other 'Smart' systems won't keep your house warmer, but could save you money. It largely does this, tho', by guarding you from forgetting (or not bothering!) to turn the heating off at times.

I was sceptical about the Nest but I think we benefit.  The function where it switches to Eco if we're out/away, but we can switch it on when we're on our way home is brilliant. I last used this while OH was picking the suitcase off the carousel last week!

I like to reset it to learning mode if there's any change at home. Then we each get to 'vote' for what's comfortable by changing the dial, and after a few days I see if there's a pattern. I feel like we're more 'seasonal' this way. When OH retired and I moved my desk from the living room to a back bedroom I could see the heating was on more so I adapted my workwear.

FreeBear

Le_Kirk said:

andre_xs said:

Apologies for the late reply, I just wanted to thank you all. Turning on Eco mode indeed did the trick. It now does take a bit longer for warm water to come, but it's really not much longer, so no problem at all.

Did you mean turning OFF eco mode?

Eco mode disables the "lets keep everything hot just in case there is a demand for DHW" mode.

moneysaver1978

koalakoala said:

As a matter of interest what temperature do folk set during the night?

We have only had 1 winter in this house so we are still experimenting and I have today installed Hive hub (as the hive thermostat & receiver came with the house). Here's our current schedule (which we had just set up in the app a few moments ago!):

21 degrees: 06:30 - 08:30
19 degrees: 08:30 - 12:30
21 degrees: 12:30 - 14:00
19 degrees: 14:00 - 18:30
20 degrees: 18:30 - 21:30
18 degrees: 21:30 - 06:30

We did learn in last winter that anything lower than 16 or 17 during the day is just too cold despite wearing layers and/or the house taking too long to warm up - one of the pitfalls of a 1930s solid wall house despite adding new insulation in the loft!

We will see what happens next few days and adjust accordingly.

ThisIsWeird

Flugelhorn said:

our house is fine - having lived in a draughty 4 storey edwardian pile, the modern house stays wonderfully warm. and cost a fraction to heat! heating just automatically clicks off at 9pm ish and on about 0630 - 

Ok - you win

ThisIsWeird

Le_Kirk said:

andre_xs said:

Apologies for the late reply, I just wanted to thank you all. Turning on Eco mode indeed did the trick. It now does take a bit longer for warm water to come, but it's really not much longer, so no problem at all.

Did you mean turning OFF eco mode?

Nope - turning on ECO mode turns off the pre-heat.

Yup - mil's WB had me scratching my head over that one - what did the 'eco' light being 'on' mean? Yup, it's off. I mean, pre-heat is off. Eco is on. I think.

Flugelhorn

ThisIsWeird said:

Le_Kirk said:

andre_xs said:

Apologies for the late reply, I just wanted to thank you all. Turning on Eco mode indeed did the trick. It now does take a bit longer for warm water to come, but it's really not much longer, so no problem at all.

Did you mean turning OFF eco mode?

Nope - turning on ECO mode turns off the pre-heat.

Yup - mil's WB had me scratching my head over that one - what did the 'eco' light being 'on' mean? Yup, it's off. I mean, pre-heat is off. Eco is on. I think.

we have that in our holiday flat - green light means pre heat is OFF. also have to remember to switch the water heating off on the time switch, otherwise it seems to override ECO

ThisIsWeird

moneysaver1978 said:

koalakoala said:

As a matter of interest what temperature do folk set during the night?

We have only had 1 winter in this house so we are still experimenting and I have today installed Hive hub (as the hive thermostat & receiver came with the house). Here's our current schedule (which we had just set up in the app a few moments ago!):
21 degrees: 06:30 - 08:30
19 degrees: 08:30 - 12:30
21 degrees: 12:30 - 14:00
19 degrees: 14:00 - 18:30
20 degrees: 18:30 - 21:30
18 degrees: 21:30 - 06:30
We did learn in last winter that anything lower than 16 or 17 during the day is just too cold despite wearing layers and/or the house taking too long to warm up - one of the pitfalls of a 1930s solid wall house despite adding new insulation in the loft!
We will see what happens next few days and adjust accordingly.

Every house, and every user, will be different. 

These figures are perfectly normal for a cosy home, and I think it's only since the energy costs soared that folk are suddenly deciding that '21' is too warm! Certainly applies to me - I have made '18' the default 'living' temp, but I'm happy to turn it up to 18.5 or 19 if we want. Before the energy cost hike, I'd have thought little about having it at 20oC. Now, I quite enjoy the thick blanket over us in t'eve'.

The only obvious figure that may be worth experimenting with on your settings - should you wish to make energy savings - is the overnight temp of 18oC; I think that can be considered highish.

Is there any reason why you want it at this level overnight? Unless, say, you have a baby or toddler who needs that sort of temp, one of the first tweaks I'd make would be to try '17' overnight temps for a few days, and seeing that it still comes up to the required 21oC at 6.30. If it does, if you don't think the house is warm enough at wake-up time, then try an earlier switch-on to 21 to compensate.

If your boiler is coming on and off regularly overnight to maintain 18oC, that will be a lot of 'wasted' gas. By 'wasted', I mean 'if it ain't actually needed'.