Apologies for another non-bike related household thread.

We've just had a new gas CH boiler fitted and as I now work from home, I'm looking for advice on the cheapest way to run it. For info, it's a conventional CH system – condensing boiler, hot water cylinder, cold tank in loft, room stat/TRV's.

The guy that fitted the system reckons it might be best to leave the CH on all day-time and just let the TRV's & room stat control it. However, my 'stinge-ometer' starts winking at the thought of leaving the boiler on all day.

So, in peoples experience, what's the cheapest (sensible) way to run it? (as i sit here in my wooly baselayer and two fleeces….c'mon summer, where are you!)

What thermostat are you running? I guess it's new if the boiler is but ours made a big difference.

We had a combi with standard 'on/off' bi-metal thermostat and 24 hour timer on the boiler.

Swapped it for a 7 day digital thermostat with hi/lo settings. Stuck boiler on constant and let the thermostat handle it all.

Before house would get hot, overshoot the set temp, get really hot, turn off, get really cold, fire up, run 100% into overshoot again. House got hot/cold/hot/cold. Then at night, it was off or boiling.

The boiler runs less hard and the house is a much more even temp. 19 degrees during the day, 14 degrees at night.

If the room temp is above the 'stat setting, the boiler in 'on' but not running. Less heat change uses less fuel. Imagine cruising at 70 compared to dropping back to 60, accelerating up to 80, dropping back to 60 again, accelerating…

Our gas usage is tracked monthly and our bills dropped significantly. The year on year usage shows a clear step down right when I fitted the new 'stat.

Lovely.

Just need to reprogram it so 19C displays as 22C and the Mrs. will be happy too!

19C!!!

I was brought up on 14C – have now compromised with my wife on 17C (after living together for about 10 years).

Drop the the temperature a couple of degrees and the fuel bills tumble. Add a bit of insulation and the go down further.

We're on oil and the last couple who had the house used 4 tanks a year – we use 2. At £600 plus per tank thats a lot of cash.

Hmm…ta for the advice. At the moment we've got an analogue wireless thermostat that I normally have set at about 17 to 19C. I guess the existing stat is a simple bi-metallic mechanism – the hi/lo thermostats sound good & something I'm gonna ivestigate. The (new)programmer for the boiler is a digital 7 day, ? event, job – and I can control the temp & heating times of the hot water cylinder seperately. Last boiler heated tap water to same temp as CH i.e. 80C !!, so at least I'll, hopefully, be saving a lot of gas only heating it to 60C.