FD - we did that in the old house where it was impractical to heat the whole house (single skin drafty sash windows victorian cottage).
In winter we would set the thermostat on the boiler to 15degs and just run a gas stove in one day room and the electric radiator in the little'uns.
Now we have a fully insulated almost airtight new house we can be more flippant with the thermostat 
We have bought a thermostatic oil filled radiator for a 8 month olds bedroom. He appears not to like it below 18 degrees at night so we reckoned it would be cheaper to heat his box room, rather than the whole house?
Possibly, but it depends on the heater. I'm sure someone here knows how efficient that sort of heater is.
its 100% efficient because it's electric. The losses of fuel conversion into energy are at the power plant.
Its is however much more expensive. Elec costs about 12-15p kWh. Gas about 3pkWh. Assume say 85% efficiency of a gas boiler and your heat costs 3.5p kWh.
EDIT, sorry poppa, I assume you mean maybe total cost.
Maybe the whole house needs 15kW/h to keep warm and the kids room just say 1/8th of that,, or 2kW/h to keep warm.
So either 15kW x 3.5p/kWh = 52.5p per hour to heat the house versus 2kW x 15p = 30p per hour to heat juniors room.
Yup, if you have special requirements I'd go with an elec heater in the one room. However that could work out financially unwise if you're not careful - the elec heater + the cost of elec (2-3x the cost of gas per kwh) would mean the benefit could become marginal in a small well insulated house.
Dont make your children as soft as you eh
Lil Grips doesn't seem to care much about temperature generally, she is a hot little thing. Mrs Grips worries much more than I do about putting jackets etc on her (although not overly). It's more in the interests of getting a full night's kip than being soft on her. If her room is cold then she can wake up whining with seriously icy little hands and possibly feet.
"Surely it depends on exactly how long you leave it off. IF you have it on for 4 hours a day and off for 20 then it will be better cheaper than leaving it on for 24. ALternatively if you have it on for 20 and off for 4 It would probably make very little difference having it on continuously."
The heat loss is proportional to the temp differential so the longer you have the house warmer, the more energy lost. Continual heating = continual loss at max temp differential ie maximises losses.
I fitted a timed thermostat so ours is on all the time, just timed to different temps throughout the day. For us, I cant say it costs more than off-on, but our house is a 60's ex-council semi with concrete walls (no wall insulation). If the house retained more heat the off-on would probably be cheaper as it would lose less heat & would heat-up quicker. If our heating goes off the place goes very cold & takes hours to heat back up.
I'm astonished how hot people think they must have their house. Especially reading these comments on the home of MTFU! And blaming it on cosseting the kids! What a laugh - how the hell do you think mankind got to this point? 20 degrees indoors all year round is an product of this current generation only. Go back 30 years and most people were unaware that such extravagance and softness was even possible.
My parents still live in the house I was born in (indeed the house my dad was born in). There is no heating at all apart from a Rayburn and log burner downstairs. No double glazing, no loft insulation. Plenty of ice indoors. I survived it, as did my brother and sister - as did dad and his five siblings.
My gas boiler is set for 19 degrees but is now on for most of the day. last year I had it set to come on and heat the house from 5.30 until 10.30 weekdays and then most of the day on weekends. this year I have had the heating on low from 6.30 to 10 and the house is toasty and I have the same kW/h usage I had last year. My Dad has done the same with oil and he thinks he's made a saving.
I don't want my house boiling but I don't want it too cold. I like chilling in the house wearign shorts and a tshirt but I'm equally happy in my chav pants and a fleecey hoody.
Physics says no, everything else is just cosyness.
Do you find it uses less petrol to leave the car engine running overnight too?
on a slightly related note, do radiators 'degrade' over time? Our living room rad is short (sits under the window sill) but fairly wide (6' or so) and 'double thickness', but the room is noticably cooler than others, even with the valves open full. Would replacing like for like improve things (my knowledge of these things suggests no) or do I need to find a way of upping the BTUs?
I'm astonished how hot people think they must have their house.
I don't think they think they "must", more "I can have it at 21, so I will".
Physics says no, everything else is just cosyness.
Do you find it uses less petrol to leave the car engine running overnight too?
Nicely put. Though I should have left my car running the other night, after a sustained -20 all night it wouldn't start
Go back 30 years and most people were unaware that such extravagance and softness was even possible.
And, according to my folks, it was pretty f'in miserable most winters! My Nan had to get up at 5am before everyone else to light the fire. Do you do that?
What a fascinating modern era we live in
Let's all turn the clock back to 1920 and FREEEZZZZEEE!
There is some middle ground! Somewhere in between freezing and swanning about in your pants in the depths of winter. The world is a mad place when we are so soft that we can't tolerate being indoors with a jumper on.
And then people moan because fuel is expensive.
And. Some of the same people are all full of "mtfu" advice on other subjects!
Jeez. Some middle ground is all.
Middle ground on STW.........? 
Do you find it uses less petrol to leave the car engine running overnight too?
you don't really have to heat the thermal envelope of a car to keep you warm though do you. If I did keep it on all night then my road might thaw out a little quicker
my heating is on and im still cold....lol i live in a victorian terrace where the ceilings are pretty high and rooms are big.. warm in summer and freeeezing in winter... gud job the whippet keeps me toastie warm snuggled next to me at nite ! 
We have been pondering turning off the house heating during the day, and using the leccy radiator in the GF's home-office only.
The difference in volume between her office and the whole house is ~1/10th, while the cost uplift per unit of using the leccy rad is x5. So that suggests a 50% cost saving over the day-time period.
Thanks
except buzz that doesnt take into account the additional energy you need to sink in to the fabric of the cold house at the end of the day to get it up to comfort temperature again for the evening.
To heat your home economically and still have it warm take a look at Weather compensators. We've had one fitted with our new fully modulating boiler. Dare I say it, awesome bit of kit. There is an outside temp sensor that measure outside air temp and constantly adjust the flow temp of your heating to maintain a constant temp in the house. It learns how quickly your house warms & cools so it knows when to gently start heating again. On a scale of 0-5 in boiler power (5 is the highest) ours rarely gets above 2. On a standard boiler/room stat setup you more or less modulate between 0-1 (1 being full pelt)
Its cut our gas usage in half from our old boiler.
It is conclusive that if you leave your heating on permanently rather than timed that you will pay more.
It's not so much about the heat being created as the heat loss. All heat is absorbed through the fabric of the building over a period of time, so when your heating is on, you are losing it through the walls/windows/ceiling. The longer it is on the more you lose!
"except buzz that doesnt take into account the additional energy you need to sink in to the fabric of the cold house at the end of the day to get it up to comfort temperature again for the evening."
I understand: insulation plays a big part to whether cycling is efficient. The warmed walls slowly radiate their heat both internally and externally as they cool. Even with the heating system off for a further 8 hours during the day, the inside of the house will only drop to ~ +10 degrees, as it does overnight. And the internal air is very quickly brought up to comfort temperature, while the walls are being slowly re-heated.
At the end of the day, I'm avoiding pointlessly heating 10/10ths of the house for a 1/3rd of the day, and another 9/10th's of the house for a further 1/3rd of the day.
But more importantly, the GF just said "No". So much for the laws of physics!
To heat your home economically and still have it warm take a look at Weather compensators. We've had one fitted with our new fully modulating boiler. Dare I say it, awesome bit of kit. There is an outside temp sensor that measure outside air temp and constantly adjust the flow temp of your heating to maintain a constant temp in the house. It learns how quickly your house warms & cools so it knows when to gently start heating again. On a scale of 0-5 in boiler power (5 is the highest) ours rarely gets above 2. On a standard boiler/room stat setup you more or less modulate between 0-1 (1 being full pelt)Its cut our gas usage in half from our old boiler.
Sounds interesting - any particular product? How easy is this to fit?
glenp - Member
I'm astonished how hot people think they must have their house. Especially reading these comments on the home of MTFU! And blaming it on cosseting the kids! What a laugh - how the hell do you think mankind got to this point? 20 degrees indoors all year round is an product of this current generation only. Go back 30 years and most people were unaware that such extravagance and softness was even possible.My parents still live in the house I was born in (indeed the house my dad was born in). There is no heating at all apart from a Rayburn and log burner downstairs. No double glazing, no loft insulation. Plenty of ice indoors. I survived it, as did my brother and sister - as did dad and his five siblings.
Mong - my thermostat is usually above 20 deg in Winter. This is because it gets the house to a lovely warm temperature where I feel comfortable and I want to have it at that temp. I don't, however moan about fuel bills.
I used to live in a house that had ice on the inside of the windows in Winter and it was effin 'orrible.
Just for the record, I work outside in minus whatever it has been just lately, so no, I won't be MTFUpping any time soon.
As for heating.our combi gets the house up to temp in about 30 mins, so on that basis the timer is set prior to us getting up and getting home from work.
I think it depends on your boiler. Most of the big manufacturers offer an add on kit for their own products.
We've gone for a remeha broag boiler, this has the WC built in, you just need to add the external temp sensor which costs £15.
It was 2 wires for the temp sensor and 2 wires for the starship enterprise style controller.
Molgrips:
Can really recommend the Grobag sleeping bags (other brands are available just make sure they have zips all the way round the bottom and are long enough). They snapper over the shoulder and don't have arms. Baby Kip has a 2.5tog one and when it's nippy (as at the mo) she's in a short sleeve vest, babygrow, fleecy babygrow and grobag. sounds like alot but her hands stay warmish and her legs/feet are also warm. Also means she can't kick it off...genius.
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