Central Heating

bethscott1970

I would put the central heating on if we had any The only heating we have in our 3 bedroom house is a coal fire in the sitting room. I light the fire in the morning while the chilren have their breakfast and the house soon warms through. The only concession to winter is the fleece pajamas and thicker quilts that we all have for night times. I've been accused of being cruel to my kids by not living in a modern house but out of our four children they have only ever had 4 days off school ill in 2 years. We very rarely get colds, noone has had flu in over 3 years and our heating bills are almost nonexistant as we burn logs (free from the local farm) and newspaper logs the kids make in the summer (their favorite job getting messy with water and papers ).

moneysavingplumber

GreenFingers wrote:

The hot water heating is slightly different. I set the temperature setting on the hot water cylinder to 60 degrees and the Hot Water setting on the timer to ‘Auto’. This ensures a constant supply of hot water with minimal gas usage – i.e. Coldish water takes a lot to heat up, hottish water takes little heat energy to keep it hottish. How scientifical is that – lol.

Government energy efficiency guidelines under building regulation Part L recommend use of timed hot water controls as opposed to continuous. In certain circumstances continuous can be more efficient, but it depends on the amount of stored water, the temperature involved and levels of insulation and storage materials, and in a typical domestic British system, timed is more efficient. Currently, cylinder thermostats should be set to 60 degrees, any less than this will promote more limescale in hard water areas, thus further reducing efficiency, and bacteria. The minimum temperature is likely to be increased to a recommended 70 degrees in the future, with thermal mixing valves being compulsory to control temperature to tap outlets, as there is evidence legionella can develop at temperatures as high as 60 degrees.

If you have an old system with gravity hot water and pumped heating, in the summer it's worth programming the central heating to come on for one minute each day to 'kick' the pump and prevent it seizing by the autumn, which is very common as I make plenty of money going out and unseizing them every September, it's a costly excercise to call a plumber out for this set against what it would cost to run the heating for a minute a day through the summer. Most modern combi boilers have this feature inbuilt.

moneysavingplumber

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

Just curious to know what other people are spending on gas used just for heating and hot water, we spend £20.00 per month on direct debit through the year and I think that we may be being a little extravagant, what does everyone else pay?

It really depends on what type of property you are in and what kind of system you have. It sounds pretty good to me.

moneysavingplumber

savingpennies wrote:

Is it worth getting cavity insulation. I've been looking into the cost of this but are there any drawbacks to installation?

If you have an old boiler (i.e. one that makes use of a chimney for the flue outlet) make sure that any airbricks providing combustion ventilation are ducted so's they are not filled with the insulation. Most reputable companies should be aware of this hazard anyway.

moneysavingplumber

researcher wrote:

I make mine - I cover cardboard with silver foil and attach to the wall behind the radiator. All the heat that would normally escape through the wall will reflect back into the room!

You can buy them - but I've no idea of cost.

These things are horrible, I'm not sure if they do anything or not. Heat from 'radiators' isn't actually radiated heat, it's conducted & convected, as opposed to heat from the sun which is radiated and would be reflected. You will still lose heat through the fabric of the building no matter what you stick behind the radiator, you'd be better to invest in having thermostatic radiator valves fitted and the system correctly balanced. It's a little bit like people that ask me not to put their radiators under windows as they think they'll lose more heat out of the window, it's nonsense, you'll lose the same amount of heat through the window no matter where you put the radiator.

moneysavingplumber

researcher wrote:

I leave my heating on for 24 hours per day! You might think I'm crazy but I neither like a hot house or living in an igloo - the thermostate is set at 15 c and the heating only comes on when its quite chilly and only ever comes on at night in the winter when temperatures are way below freezing. When we sit down in the evening we tweek the thermostate to maybe 18c - or put one bar on the gas fire on. The benefit of this is that the house never gets cold - much of the cost of heating a home is bringing up everything to an ambient temperature - when it's there it doesn't cost much more. But neither does it get overheated - which is bad for your health.

Making sure you have heat reflectors behind all radiators maximises the heat you produce - and sufficient insulation ensures it's not wasted.

Again, this doesn't concur with the government guidelines on energy efficiency. 'Best Practice' recommends timed controls, preferably a programmable room thermostat, incorporating thermostatic radiator valves and a condensing boiler balanced to give a 20 degree differential accross the flow and return to the boiler and a 20 degree differential accross the inlet and outlet of every radiator. They have clear published guidelines on what savings can be expected set against what an installer may be removing from an existing property. With a stat set at 15 degrees it's still very likely that the heating will kick in for periods during the day in autumn/winter/spring when the house may be unoccupied, and it's impossible to monitor when it may kick in and out during the night. Most heating programmers are preset with a morning programme of 6.30am to 8.30am and an evening programme of 4.30pm to 10.30pm. With a stat set at 18 degrees at these programmes, I bet it'd be more efficient than having it continuous at 15. A good digital 7-day programmer can be altered for weekends so it's more efficient and a digital programmmable stat can be set more accurately than a dial stat. In larger properties, guidelines state they should be 'zoned', i.e. a separate programmable stat for each floor of a large house. If you had a three storey, six bedroom house with one thermostat for the whole house in a draughty hallway set at 15 degrees with the heating on continuous, that would not be very economical throughout the colder months.

cabbageboy

You lucky, lucky, lucky people on Gas - that's all I can say!!

We are unfortunate enough to be restricted to Oil heating - rural bods!

In the 6 years of living here, we have seen the price go from 10 pence per litre to the current 36.5 pence per litre!

I've optimised my system, installed TRV, balanced, installed double glazing, set the thermo to 18 degrees, don't use the CH when I can avoid it, and we get through 2 tanks per year (summer tank lasts 9 months, winter 3 month on average)...

Now that's 350 pounds per tank - 700 for the year - that's over 58 pounds per month!!!

And we're not living in heated luxury! - just warm enough with jumpers when it get's really cold!

summerday

Thanks for all your replies, very interesting.

Our gas DD is £22 a month, elec is £20. We have gas central heating.

As OH and I are both out of the house from 8.30 am to 6pm we tend to have the heating on timer for an hour or 2 in the morning and last year OH set it from 5.30pm- 10.30, but I'm hoping he will compromise on how long its on for in the evening. Think it was set to maintain temp at 22 degrees last year.

Last winter when I was on my own in the house during the day I would say sit at the computer with a hot water bottle on my lap and it really helped.

Sarah.

summerday

bethscott1970 wrote:

I've been accused of being cruel to my kids by not living in a modern house.

Beth, I don't think you're being at all cruel. Only a few decades ago loads of family homes just had a coal fire in the living room for heat and they managed fine and lived to tell the tale. As long as you have plenty of warm clothes to wear and enough blankets on the bed then I can't see it's a problem. I personally wouldn't want to lose my central heating but nothing wrong with people who live without it.

Sarah

moneysavingplumber

saraht wrote:

As OH and I are both out of the house from 8.30 am to 6pm we tend to have the heating on timer for an hour or 2 in the morning and last year OH set it from 5.30pm- 10.30, but I'm hoping he will compromise on how long its on for in the evening. Think it was set to maintain temp at 22 degrees last year.

If your system was designed correctly, the radiators should be designed to heat reception areas and bathroom to 21 degrees and bedrooms to 18. Some thermostats are calibrated differently so it would be interesting to see what temperature you are actually achieving whilst it is set to 22, as that is quite a high setting. Digital electronic ones are more accurate and precise than dial stats that rely on bimetallic strips. The location of the thermostat is crucial also, it should be sited somewhere that reflects the average temperature of the house, not next to a radiator or in a draughty hallway.