Central Heating

Helen_from_yorkshire

moneysavingplumber wrote:

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.

As a failsafe and, if you forget to run your heating for very short periods during the summer, to prevent your pump being seized by limescale, you can buy a product called "Fernox" from any DIY store which you can put into your heating system (usually through tank in the loft) and this will prevent your pump being furred up.

black-saturn

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?

I spend £5 a month which includes all the gas, so the cooking will come into that too. But then I'm just a skinflint.

mah_jong

I use OIL, need a tank full soon so the DD will prob have to rise due to price increase.

I have worked it out and over the past years its been £24 odd a month. latest statement suggests upping DD due to price increase! As i am paying only £20 at the mo i will feel it!!!

moneysavingplumber

Helen_from_yorkshire wrote:

As a failsafe and, if you forget to run your heating for very short periods during the summer, to prevent your pump being seized by limescale, you can buy a product called "Fernox" from any DIY store which you can put into your heating system (usually through tank in the loft) and this will prevent your pump being furred up.

Fernox advertise this but if the system is already subject to sludge, which is more likely to cause central heating pump problems than scale (scale is generally likely to be a problem within the boiler itself and within domestic hot water cylinders), adding Fernox at that stage will make no or little difference, and will be largely a waste of money. The sludge is caused by the heat reacting with air that is drawn into a poorly designed system and the steel and cast iron in the system (still awake?). When left static for periods of time, or if the system loses water in the summer due to the ball-valve in the header tank sticking in the up position, the sludge can harden and create severe blockages, more often than not in the region of the pump and where the system fills and vents itself. The system, under those circumstances, will need to be cleansed first either by powerflushing or by treatment and flushing with Fernox Restorer, Sentinel X400 or a similar product, and blockages may need to be cut out. When my mate worked for BG a few years ago they were charging around £450 for all the above compared to my modest £150 :beer: . They (Fernox) also recommend retreatment with the MB1 or Protector product every three years. Pressurised systems are far less prone to these problems but should still be treated, but these have to be added to by injection or dosing vessel into a radiator, as there is no header tank.

If Fernox or similar products are added to a new system that has been cleansed correctly, designed and commissioned correctly, it will do everything it says on the tin, so-to-speak, including frost and bacterial inhibiting.

I wouldn't recommend doing any of the above on a DIY basis as to correctly treat a system, it should be at least partially drained, and recommissioning should be done by a competent person, as it could cause more problems and ultimately cost more money if not done right. But it's good for people to know exactly what should be done to improve efficiency of their systems, so when they have work done they know what questions to ask and what to listen out for.

tootles_2

We live in a rented house and a new boiler was put in before we moved in, a wall mounted condensing boiler in the kitchen, so we have no airing cupboard. The original system installed in the house was microbore so we could not have thermo rad valves put in, instead they put a thermostat in the hall which was fine, except that our hall is very small and warms up quickly, even if we leave the kitchen door open. There is a radiator in the hall and I have resorted to turning this radiator off as the thermostat cuts the heating off before the lounge is fully up to heat, we have our stairs going up from the lounge so loose heat up there, its really annoying having the heating cut out when the living room is still cool.

The design of the lounge is quite odd too, there are two very large radiators one double and one single one and both are on the walls where we have no choice but to put either an easy chair or the settee, we have the settee in front of the single radiator and the easy chair is as far in the corner as it will go, but it still covers part of the double radiator, I had thought of asking the landlord if he would change the two rads for the newer smaller higher powered rads, but having had to wait for 6 months for him to get an isolation switch put on the shower in the bathroom, do not hold out much hope.

spankymonkey_2

i love a warm house,but my hubby insists on a cold bedroom, so we dont have the radiator on in there. normally we have a fan going too but i must admit its a bit of a pain when you get out of bed in the morning to a gush of cool air!
i was tempted to put the heating on this evening but resisted and sent my son to bed with a hot water bottle. the daughter has the perfect bedroom for winter, she has the airing cupboard in her room!

moneysavingplumber

tootles wrote:

We live in a rented house and a new boiler was put in before we moved in, a wall mounted condensing boiler in the kitchen, so we have no airing cupboard. The original system installed in the house was microbore so we could not have thermo rad valves put in, instead they put a thermostat in the hall which was fine, except that our hall is very small and warms up quickly, even if we leave the kitchen door open. There is a radiator in the hall and I have resorted to turning this radiator off as the thermostat cuts the heating off before the lounge is fully up to heat, we have our stairs going up from the lounge so loose heat up there, its really annoying having the heating cut out when the living room is still cool.

The design of the lounge is quite odd too, there are two very large radiators one double and one single one and both are on the walls where we have no choice but to put either an easy chair or the settee, we have the settee in front of the single radiator and the easy chair is as far in the corner as it will go, but it still covers part of the double radiator, I had thought of asking the landlord if he would change the two rads for the newer smaller higher powered rads, but having had to wait for 6 months for him to get an isolation switch put on the shower in the bathroom, do not hold out much hope.

Who told you that TRVs are not available for microbore? Several makes are available in 8mm and 10mm including Myson, Danfoss and Honeywell. Alot of plumbers may not want to get involved in fitting them because microbore pipe is soft and the olives have often been overtightened on the old valves, making it a tricky job, but I've changed many on microbore. With regards the poorly positioned room stat, the easiest option would be to have it disconnected and replace it with a wireless digital stat, you can then site it wherever you want. The reciever would have to be wired into the system's wiring centre in place of the old thermostats connections, this should be done by a qualified electrician and is likely to be subject to part P building regulation as it will involve a little new wiring, so it's important it's done by someone that can self-certify to building control, otherwise it has to be inspected by them. Drayton RF1 Wireless Digistat should cost no more than £80 plus VAT, Sunvic make a cheaper one but I've personally found it less reliable.

It's difficult in rented properties, landlords are understandably preoccupied with immediate costs, after all they're not paying the heating bills.

moneysavingplumber

spankymonkey wrote:

the daughter has the perfect bedroom for winter, she has the airing cupboard in her room!

Your daughter won't like this! All immediate pipe work from your cylinder should be insulated and if the cylinder is not factory foam-lagged, should have a new (ish) jacket. She still might get a bit of underfloor heat if she's lucky from the converging pipe work! :rotfl:

halloweenqueen_2

There are lots of grants availbale for cavity wall insulation, powergen are currently doing an offer for £75, which is half price apparetnly, but the guy doing the inspection says his firm does them for £99 anyway. He said that a lot of people don't realise grants are available, if you are on benefits it could be free, I think it was also free for over 60's. Well worth checking out because we found it made a lot of difference to our house after having it done.

tootles_2

We had our walls and attic done under the warmfront scheme which is for people over 60 or on benefit, as you say it makes such a difference. I was in the attic the other day getting a box down, the house was warm, but the attic freezing. If we could just sort out the living room we would be fine, our heating and leccy bill for the year is around £360 which I think is reasonable considering we are in all day and its on from 7am till 9.30 pm. I cannot sleep in a warm room either, if my husband is cold I give him a hot water bottle to take to bed, I cannot get into a hot bed, when we did have an electric blanket we had dual controls, my side never went on, it went phut earlier this year and I elected not to replace it.