Home working heating one room suggestions

I'm sitting in my unheated office/garage and currently have an infrared heater pointing at me. Find it a great way of heating me and not the whole room/building

I have a small portable IR heater for when I’m in the garage. Directly heats what it’s pointed at (I.e. you!) rather than trying to heat the whole room.

Little fan heater pointed at me if it's really cold but usually no heating and a thick fleece. Good slippers too. I don't mind it cold though.

I use hive trvs to only heat my room when I'm home alone. Works well

Air con installed. Heating and cooling and highly efficient

Slightly different strategy but I've been using a dehumidifier ( we have 2 x Meaco DD8L ) in the room i use for homeworking  which both kicks out a bit of heat and obviously also dries the air. Also given i have a drying rack in there, its doing that job too. Small enough room that the temperature is comfortable enough plus the air is drier so feels less heavy than other rooms

Thermal boiler suit for the win. 👍

Very small oiled filled radiator and keep the door shut works for me although there is a quite interesting program on BBC sounds that suggest using gas central heating is still cheapest as it's about a third the cost of electricity per kWh.

We currently use a tiny oil filled rad, I did briefly consider an infrared heater but got the impression they are only cheaper for short term use i.e an hour in the garage, not ten hours working all day.

Reason being that an oil filled rad will switch on and off with the stat (with only a click to give itself away) whereas an IR panel, fan heaters and to a lesser extent, upright convection heaters switch off obviously with a visual or audible cue that it's time to feel cold (and turn the stat up or put the main heating on).

I used the oil rad overnight in my campervan recently and although I could hear it clicking on and off, I didn't know whether it was switching on or off and no obvious change in temperature. Again better than the blown air heating as sudden changes in temp are not good for comfort.

Efficiency wise you're probably losing more energy to the rest of the house than you would if you just kept it the same temperature.

Bought a electric heater last winter and the smart meter told me it was costing more than heating the whole house.

MIL has a Dreo space heater that she uses in the living room in the evening. I think it runs at something like 900-1500W. Warms up really quickly and we’ve now looking at getting one vs committing more to either Hive or Tado.

I put Tado in last winter and my spreadsheet says we are consuming about 30% less gas - mainly heating one room rather than the whole house.

We have an old stone badly insulated draughty house so heating the whole thing was just costing money. Improving insulation throughout would be very hard - we have considered just doing the work room, or getting a really well insulated garden office 'pod'.

An electric heated throw?

Depends how hardcore you want to be but personal heat (electric blanket, heated slippers, etc) will be very much cheaper than heating the room. Also, a hat and fingerless gloves if you don’t mind feeling like you’re camping in your house.

Wear a couple more layers too of course. I have thick trousers and a big fleece hoody on for about 8 months of the year here anyway regardless of fuel prices.

Efficiency wise you’re probably losing more energy to the rest of the house than you would if you just kept it the same temperature.

This isn’t true - it’s the difference between the heat losses from one room to the rest of the house/that rooms outside walls vs the heat losses of the entire house to the outside walls. Assuming you keep the door closed on the room you’re heating that is !

I’ve been using an oil filled rad in my office room during the day, but am having a smart meter fitted next week so will have some fun and games experimenting with options such as using the gas CH and turning all other rads off vs the elec heater etc. I expect the gas option to use more energy but has is a lot cheaper per kw.hr than electricity.

Buy a bigger screen.

Seriously, in my study I have no heater. Even the radiator is turned off. Shut the door and between the laptop, me and a 34” screen there is more than enough heat. Normally have to open the door in the afternoons or strip off a layer.

Study is a small box room in a modern well insulated house and your situation may be different.

Been working from permanently for the last 3 years and intermittently for the last 10.

Can you insulate the room better too?

This isn’t true – it’s the difference between the heat losses from one room to the rest of the house/that rooms outside walls vs the heat losses of the entire house to the outside walls. Assuming you keep the door closed on the room you’re heating that is !

The maths on Heatgeek seemed quite persuasive. Given the average house has next to no insulation between rooms it seemed plausible to me.

I sit on a seated throw. It's amazing and costs pennies.

The maths on Heatgeek seemed quite persuasive. Given the average house has next to no insulation between rooms it seemed plausible to me.

Simple engineering logic doesn’t agree. The single room has the house insulation PLUS whatever insulation exists between it and the the rest of the house. It doesn’t need any maths, just a basic understanding of thermodynamics and heat transfer.

Buy a bigger screen.

If you look at the power consumption of various different sized screens, that doesn't really seem like it'll make any real difference.

Could just run a 3W table lamp for as much effect (assuming you're running an external screen in the first place).

I use hive trvs to only heat my room when I’m home alone. Works well

There are caveats with this - your system has to be set up in a way that allow you to just heat one room, and many aren't. Consult a plumber, or spend weeks reading stuff on the internet about it 😉

It doesn’t need any maths, just a basic understanding of thermodynamics and heat transfer.

Hmm but a slightly more than basic understanding of how central heating works might actually throw it the other way. It's more complex than I at first thought. For example the rad in my work room is pretty small, and it can only dump about 500W of heat. But the lowest boiler out put is 9kW. So it's going to run for a pretty short time to just fill the water in that rad. The Heat Geek video does go into a lot of detail about efficiency that I didn't pay enough attention to, but it is quite complex. It's about the efficiency of how the heat gets from the gas flame to the air in your room.

I need to watch the HeatGeek thing but just can't see it being true in a lot of cases except say in a well insulated house where energy losses from the other rooms are low.

In a house with no external wall insulation, heating just 1 room is like heating a tiny house versus a big one.

Heat transfer between rooms isn't "lost" heat.

But when the rest of the house is cold you need to use more energy to keep one room at a higher temperature than the rest. And who has a completely uninsulated house? If you actually watch the video the "basic thermodynamics" are shown to be anything but.

More energy for that one room than you'd have to if the other rooms were heated, but less energy overall than heating those rooms directly.

Back in my youth, before central heating, the solution was either a Super Ser gas bottle heater or a paraffin heater. Google suggests the paraffin heaters are now available with elctronics, thermostats and clean burn which makes them odourless. Might be worth a look.

So, there is a Hive installed in the house and we are using that to decide how cold it is before we stick the heating on...I'm now thinking about the Tado radiator controllers.

What would I need to get? I'm assuming (hoping) it is just the Tado radiator controllers and I then go round the house and replace the control valves things on each radiator and stick these Tado ones one. Is that it?

Once installed, I'm assuming they will need to connect to the house wifi and I should be able to see them on Google Home and do some controlling from that (or the Tado app directly) - do they need a central controller or do they just fit on radiator and each one is connected to the house wifi?

Also fitting them, video suggests you can just unscrew the heating valve on the radiator and screw the Tado one on - is it that simple or do you have to drain the system before removing the valves?

I'm all for home automation, but it really needs to be beneficial - in this case, heating the individual rooms whilst not spending as much money on the heating. Ideally it needs to be fit on radiators and it then connects to the house wifi and Google Home can access and control it.

Also fitting them, video suggests you can just unscrew the heating valve on the radiator and screw the Tado one on – is it that simple or do you have to drain the system before removing the valves?

If you've got TRVs, it's trivial. If not, you'll probably have to drain the system.

So, there is a Hive installed in the house and we are using that to decide how cold it is before we stick the heating on…I’m now thinking about the Tado radiator controllers.

The main boiler controller (so Hive in your case) and the radiator thermostats need to be the same brand / system - so you need to buy Hive TRVs, or replace your Hive controller with a new Tado one.

What would I need to get? I’m assuming (hoping) it is just the Tado radiator controllers and I then go round the house and replace the control valves things on each radiator and stick these Tado ones one. Is that it?

Yes. (Hive not Tado for you)

Also fitting them, video suggests you can just unscrew the heating valve on the radiator and screw the Tado one on – is it that simple or do you have to drain the system before removing the valves?

Yes it is that simple. You need to have existing TRVs on the radiators. The Hive thermostat replaces the top bit. No need to drain.

I'm planning on picking up a rechareable heated blanket or gilet soon, I think heating me instead of the space may be cheaper, plus side is I can also charge the battery pack when I venture to the office once a week!

It's sitting still that's the biggest problem, IMO. With the door shut the combined effect of me, my laptop, dock and monitor heat the room quite well; you really notice the difference when walking out on to the landing.

However, sitting for a while I start to feel cold. Combo of alternating sitting/standing to work (with appropriate desk) and just walking out of the room to get a coffee usually helps.

I have a small oil filled rad but even set low I find the room gets a bit too warm and stuffy. Don't think I've used it at all in the last 12 months.

i've got a 15x10 office/studio at the top of the garden. built it myself so fairly well insulated, use a small oil filled radiator when required.

south facing as with big-ish windows so on a sunny day it doesnt need much heat at all. first thing can be a bit fresh so just put the radiator on a homekit plug so I can turn it on while I'm having breakfast in the house.

echo what someone else said about the monitor. I've recently been issued a 34" curved LG thing and it kicks out a huge amount of heat.

Once installed, I’m assuming they will need to connect to the house wifi and I should be able to see them on Google Home and do some controlling from that (or the Tado app directly) – do they need a central controller or do they just fit on radiator and each one is connected to the house wifi?

The TRVs connect to the controller, not directly to your Wifi - so yes they need a central controller. (Or they do for my Wiser ones). You want that controller to be the one controlling your boiler so the TRVs can turn the boiler on and off. For my Wiser system every radiator has a Wiser TRV and I don't use the room thermostat. I work from home and have scenes (called 'Moments') to quickly turn off all the radiators apart from the room I work in.

I got a sit/stand desk recently, and the increase in body temperature when standing is a lot more than I thought. I can warm myself up quite thoroughly by switching to standing mode.

Also a Zwift session provides a fair few hours of free heating afterwards.

Choose the smallest room with the most internal walls to work in. My box room office with 2m2 external walls takes 15 minutes of fan heater to then be warm enough all day. My partners spare room office with more like 10+M2 external walls needs the fan heater on all day when it's really cold (the radiator is chronically undersized).

On heating 1 room Vs the house. The heat loss is proportional to the temperature differential either side of a wall. So the hotter the house is the more energy you will lose to outside. This will in most cases dwarf the energy lost to the ambient house (16degC?) from a heated room. In reality I think it will vary case by case and come down to the thermal efficiency of the room you work in.

echo what someone else said about the monitor. I’ve recently been issued a 34″ curved LG thing and it kicks out a huge amount of heat.

42W typical - I mean, that's maybe 10W more than a smaller screen.

But when the rest of the house is cold you need to use more energy to keep one room at a higher temperature than the rest.

More energy than what? That one room will require more heat if the neighbouring room is cold, but from a thermodynamics point of view, that should still be less than heating the whole house.

Thanks @sl2000 - off to do some more checking now.

Hopefully the final daft question - TRV = Thermostatic Radiator Valve? If so, is that the one where you can control how warm the heater is by turning the dial on the valve? All the radiators have those so hopefully a straight forward job - my DIY skills are woeful mainly due to lack of patience, this does sound like it would be a job I could do though!

that heatgeek article about lowering return temperatures is all well and good, but its playing with the margins. the theoretical difference between a 50C return temp (pretty normal) and a 40C return temp (really pushing things) is 3% of theoretical efficiency. Running a single room instead of a whole house can reduce the losses by around 50% - even if you're heating the water slightly less efficiently (which is debatable), the overall savings are more than compensated for.

Hopefully the final daft question – TRV = Thermostatic Radiator Valve? If so, is that the one where you can control how warm the heater is by turning the dial on the valve?

it is a thermostatic radiator valve, and it is normally a large dial with numbers on it, rather than a small knob. google imaged to see the sort of thing - if you're directly turning something which turns the metal tap, its non-thermo and you'd need to change that (including draining down the system) before you can add a smart trv

I'll have a go at the heating 1 room vs house thing too.

The two variables are rate of heat loss; and the cost of providing one unit of heat.

The heat is lost from the house to the outside (and to next door if you're in a terrace). That's proportional to the temperature difference inside to outside, the size of the walls, and the insulation. If you heat one room rather than the whole house the temperature in some of the rooms is lower, so the heat loss to the outside in those rooms is lower. You're heating those rooms with heat lost from your warm room to those rooms through the internal walls - but you're not having to heat them so much.

The cost of providing the heat is maybe what the HeatGeek thing says could be different (I've not watched the video of course). This would require a scenario where the boiler consumes more gas to put out less heat - and I can't imagine what that would be.

I think a combination approach works for me.

My office/bedroom has decent windows and gets quite warm from the sun when it's out.
Many days its more than enough heat.

When its warm and dry open the windows.. let the warm and DRY air in.

My big old desk has insulation round the back... some spare bits of polystyrene insulation left over from doing the floor in the kids room and a small (£20 Aldi) oil filled rad underneath (not been used yet this year)... so the warm air only has one way out .. my legs are tucked under (in fleece lined trousers as I type) and I can pull a duvet around when it gets cold.

That basically just leaves my hands... which last year I just used to warm up periodically under the duvet...

This year we put the heating on for 2 days and it dried the house a lot... it's not been needed since but I think it will end up being switched on a couple of days a month just to keep the house drier.

Simple engineering logic doesn’t agree. The single room has the house insulation PLUS whatever insulation exists between it and the the rest of the house. It doesn’t need any maths, just a basic understanding of thermodynamics and heat transfer.

+1, I'm not convinced either. It might be true in small houses with good insulation on external walls (like a flat or a terrace), but would flip the other way at some point, and I'd suspect it's not that big a house.