Energy myth-busting: Is it cheaper to have heating on all day?

zebb · 21 March 2017 at 8:44PM

I haven't been back to this thread for over 4 years but thought the following might be helpful. Apologies if this has been posted previously but forgive me for not checking thru 43 pages of posts!

Prior to 2013, in an attempt to save wasting heat, and on those occasions when I could be bothered to do so, I turned down the TRVs in our lounge when I went to bed and turned them up again in the evening - as we just didn't use our lounge during the day. Then I discovered programmable TRVs and now use them not only in the lounge (no longer have to remember to adjust them!) but also to control the heat in some other areas - particularly the bedrooms. Its lovely and warm when we wake up and go to bed but the bedroom is set lower during the day and early evening. It didn't cost a bomb, I used the Pegler Terrier i-temp. Bought 4 of them from Hamilton Gas products on their buy 3 get one free deal. All for just £75. (I see they're still doing the same deal now too!).

The bottom line is that my average winter oil usage has changed as follows:

6 Years to 2013 : 1950 Litres
4 Years since 2013 : 1700 Litres

I don't claim it to be scientific. It doesn't take into consideration how cold the different winters were. But, its a fact that my oil usage is averaging nearly 13% less - AND I'm more generous to MOH in that I now actually encourage her to turn the temperature up higher whenever she needs it!! And its still cheaper than before. Lovely gubbly!

victor2 · 22 March 2017 at 9:03AM

zebb wrote: »

I haven't been back to this thread for over 4 years but thought the following might be helpful. Apologies if this has been posted previously but forgive me for not checking thru 43 pages of posts!

Prior to 2013, in an attempt to save wasting heat, and on those occasions when I could be bothered to do so, I turned down the TRVs in our lounge when I went to bed and turned them up again in the evening - as we just didn't use our lounge during the day. Then I discovered programmable TRVs and now use them not only in the lounge (no longer have to remember to adjust them!) but also to control the heat in some other areas - particularly the bedrooms. Its lovely and warm when we wake up and go to bed but the bedroom is set lower during the day and early evening. It didn't cost a bomb, I used the Pegler Terrier i-temp. Bought 4 of them from Hamilton Gas products on their buy 3 get one free deal. All for just £75. (I see they're still doing the same deal now too!).

The bottom line is that my average winter oil usage has changed as follows:

6 Years to 2013 : 1950 Litres
4 Years since 2013 : 1700 Litres

I don't claim it to be scientific. It doesn't take into consideration how cold the different winters were. But, its a fact that my oil usage is averaging nearly 13% less - AND I'm more generous to MOH in that I now actually encourage her to turn the temperature up higher whenever she needs it!! And its still cheaper than before. Lovely gubbly!

Nice way to balance usage and comfort though...

malc_b · 22 March 2017 at 9:12AM

What you want to do is to find the degree days history for your location and use that to adjust your annual usage figures to compensate for the weather effect. That way you'll get a better idea of the savings due to your changes and the savings due to the warmer winters.

uk1 · 22 March 2017 at 11:50AM

Zebb, no doubt at all about your finding but I'm just interested ...... how do you know with any degree of accuracy how much oil you've been using?

I'm able to guage very roughly what is in the tank even though we have a digital scale and I know how much we buy but I have no idea how to work out consumption with any degree of accuracy.

I just topped up with 1000 gallons and my Apollo guage shows me it's only a delivery of 880 .....

Cardew · 22 March 2017 at 12:47PM

zebb wrote: »

I haven't been back to this thread for over 4 years but thought the following might be helpful. Apologies if this has been posted previously but forgive me for not checking thru 43 pages of posts!

Prior to 2013, in an attempt to save wasting heat, and on those occasions when I could be bothered to do so, I turned down the TRVs in our lounge when I went to bed and turned them up again in the evening - as we just didn't use our lounge during the day. Then I discovered programmable TRVs and now use them not only in the lounge (no longer have to remember to adjust them!) but also to control the heat in some other areas - particularly the bedrooms. Its lovely and warm when we wake up and go to bed but the bedroom is set lower during the day and early evening. It didn't cost a bomb, I used the Pegler Terrier i-temp. Bought 4 of them from Hamilton Gas products on their buy 3 get one free deal. All for just £75. (I see they're still doing the same deal now too!).

The bottom line is that my average winter oil usage has changed as follows:

6 Years to 2013 : 1950 Litres
4 Years since 2013 : 1700 Litres

I don't claim it to be scientific. It doesn't take into consideration how cold the different winters were. But, its a fact that my oil usage is averaging nearly 13% less - AND I'm more generous to MOH in that I now actually encourage her to turn the temperature up higher whenever she needs it!! And its still cheaper than before. Lovely gubbly!

Whilst the savings are impressive, the post isn't addressing the 'myth' which is the title of this thread.

Your programmable TRVs are simply turning off/down the radiators in the rooms not in use; something many of us do manually.

zebb · 23 March 2017 at 11:52PM

Thanks for your comments folks. I did write a response but something went horribly wrong as I went to submit it. So, I’ll try again:

Malc: Yes, thanks, may well do that.

UK1: I have a Titan 3600 litre round tank which is effectively in 4 sections progressively decreasing in diameter from bottom to top. I use a simple dip stick – divided into 100 units – and measure the tank once a week. By some simple maths, I’ve estimated the proportionate volume in each section – for example bottom section holds 40 litres per unit and the top 32 litres. Its proved pretty accurate over the years, being able to forecast a reading after a delivery to within 0.5 unit.

Also, 4 years ago, I investigated installing a flow meter on the pipe but the costs seemed prohibitive. Instead, I had the idea of attaching an hour meter to the pump/burner unit . It cost just a tenner. The nozzle is .75 meaning it delivers .75 US gallons per hour which equates to .62 imperial gallons or 2.84 litres per hour. Since October, the hour meter has just clocked up 500 hours – implying its used 1420 litres. My dip stick measurements show I’ve used just under 1400 litres in that time. So, it seems the old method was reasonably accurate! I suppose I could stop the weekly reads but old habits die hard. Anyway, they confirm I haven’t had a leak or have had any oil stolen!!

Trust this explains and may be of some help.

Cardew: I appreciate my post wasn’t directly related to the thread and apologise if I should have posted it elsewhere. Just thought people may be interested in a cheap way of saving energy and which didn’t require manually turning the TRVs up and down everyday. As an aside, I’ve just had the HIVE system installed (so yes, it can be installed on oil burners) and a bi-product of this is that for each day you get half hourly temperature readings. Initially thought I might use this in conjunction with my hour meter readings to compare and test the myth. However, apart from the obvious difficulty of needing 2 identical days weather conditions, we also have the problem that our boiler has its own thermostat. Very rarely do we reach our target temperature in one burn ‘session’. Indeed, there are even occasions (in the morning) in very cold or windy weather when we don’t even reach our target (house) temperature at all. Another difficulty I foresee is that we notice that the house can seem warmer when it is warming up (presumably cos the boiler and radiators are permanently ‘on’) than when its finally reached the target temperature (when boiler is only intermittently on). In light of these ‘difficulties’, I think it unlikely we will attempt to test out the myth. Will instead concentrate on comfort and putting the heat where we need it most. So, once again my apologies, I think I now agree, I am on the wrong thread!!

[Deleted User] · 11 October 2017 at 10:04AM

It's a bit more complicated. If the thermostat is "Calling for Heat" (i.e. the room temp is below the set temp) then the boiler will fire up and the pump will circulate heated water through the pipes. All radiators have a bypass (or if you turned one off, all the subsequent ones would go off also!), so even if the radiators are all OFF some heat is wasted in the floor / walls ('Wasted' if you don't need the heat which is presumably why the rads are turned off).
A central thermostat has never made sense to me, as we have the bedrooms cool, the sitting room warm and the kitchen in-between, so each needs it's own stat, preferably linked to the thermostatic valves on the rads in that room. Works beautifully, but a bit expensive to buy.

Colmol · 11 October 2017 at 11:34AM

Regarding using tumble dryers mentioned in this thread, a lot of people don't know that it is possible to buy eco friendly GAS tumble dryers. These cost just pennies to run - about 5p per load at today's prices. I've had one since the mid 80s. There is only one manufacturer of gas tumble dryers in the UK and that is Crosslee. Cost is about £285 but you save buckets of cash over the years of use compared to electric tumble dryers. Just thought some might find this info useful.

Bricks · 11 October 2017 at 11:55AM

Deleted_User wrote: »

It's a bit more complicated. If the thermostat is "Calling for Heat" (i.e. the room temp is below the set temp) then the boiler will fire up and the pump will circulate heated water through the pipes. All radiators have a bypass (or if you turned one off, all the subsequent ones would go off also!), so even if the radiators are all OFF some heat is wasted in the floor / walls ('Wasted' if you don't need the heat which is presumably why the rads are turned off).
A central thermostat has never made sense to me, as we have the bedrooms cool, the sitting room warm and the kitchen in-between, so each needs it's own stat, preferably linked to the thermostatic valves on the rads in that room. Works beautifully, but a bit expensive to buy.

There are now various systems that allow you to "zone" a conventional heating system. Each radiator has a TRV but the TRVs can communicate with the boiler switch. Therefore each room can have its own timetable for when it calls for heat, and if only one room calls for heat, only the radiator in that room takes it, meaning heat isn't wasted in other locations. The system I use is the Honeywell Evohome one; it's not that cheap but hopefully worthwhile in the long time.

Bricks · 11 October 2017 at 12:05PM

By the way. Just read the "Energy saving Myths" page on MSE. This may have been done already on the many previous pages of this thread, but the "ask jeff" article linked to seems very suspect to me

http://www.askjeff.co.uk/will-keeping-heating-increase-bills/

Firstly it seems heavily tinged with climate change denialism.

Secondly it makes a bizarre claim that those who advocate energy efficiency want people to be less comfortable in order to "punish" them for causing climate change!

Thirdly it contains a number of non-sequitur statements to do with condensation in walls, and nothing specific to back up its vague argument that this is relevant to the question the article claims to address.

I'd advise people to ignore this article. I also don't think it should be linked to on the MSE site because it seems to do nothing other than make a series of unsubstantiated claims.

Energy myth-busting: Is it cheaper to have heating on all day?

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