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No TRV's but we have turned off two radiators (son's room and ours) as there is usually enough heat for the rooms, but this week, those rooms have been switched on. We've only 7 radiators, 3 downstairs and 4 up, all pretty small, but more than sufficient.
when I'm alone in the house I only heat the room I wfh in (to 21C, as I'm just sitting there). The rest of the house drops to 14 over the course of the day.
Well I've just submitted this months readings and I've obviously been a bit lavish as combined Gas & Electric is just over £200 this month last month was £100ish.
The hallway is 14.2 degC and the lounge 17.4 degC this is after the heating has been on for 3 1/2 hours.
It used to be on all day with a target temp of 18 for the hallway when my wife was alive as she couldent get up and jump about like me 🙁
Boost I put on with Hive is just about to go off so fleece on and move about I guess is the answer.
I really feel for those that don't have a savings cushion and £200 for me is a bit of a shock as we have only had 6 or so really cold days?
Is it factually possible to do willy waving in a cold house?
I find a vigorous bout of self-gratification ideal when weather is like this. Gets the blood flowing, raises heart rate and breathing, and takes your mind off feeling cold. Just remember to make sure the camera's off if you're doing it during All Staff comms.
If it's really cold you don't even need to clean up after.
An ex-neighbour of mine used to heat his place to 24-25 degrees. Fuel bill was about 5-600 a month, mixed pellets and electrical (GSHP) plus a small solar thermal installation on the roof (4 panels). Mostly wet UFH, so quite efficient. No one wanted to wear more than shorts and T-Shirt, though his ex wife used to wander round in a bikini all year round.
The guy who is there now has it set to 20, 2 young kids and a toddler in there, and his girlfriend is on parental leave at the moment, last i spoke to him he was paying about 100-120 a month during the winter quarter... and fuel prices are (generally) 50-75% higher than when the previous guy was living there!
My place is on GSHP too, but it still using radiators from the old pure electric system, so even running flat out with the weather like it is at the moment (-10 outside) it only keeps the house at around 15-16, also i can't "switch it off" as it's all interlinked (water and heating), i turned it up last night though.
So we wear onesies and warm socks in the house, and most of the comfy seats have blankets ready for use on them anyway, they have for the last 15 years, even when the fires going.
On the flip side, just gone to light the fire, and the seal rope in the door has just fallen out.
Dammnit.
I can’t see how you need to heat the whole house when you switch the boiler on. Just turn some rads off. I’ve always done this, even when in a house without TRVs.
You could, but then I'd have to get up to a cold house and each room would be cold when I went into it until it warmed up.
Probably depends on the size/layout of the house too.
I used to live in a properly draughty 2-up, 2-down terrace, you could heat it quite effectively with the living room woodburner for the evening, and the heat leaked upstairs. Then you just relied on the central heating or got ready in a hurry in the morning. The attic room radiator didn't work anyway so that was off, and that only left the backroom upstairs which was never used. It also helped that the stairways all had doors on them so there were no internal draughts.
I now live in a new-ish build house and the layout's not conducive to turning rooms off regularly. If I heated the living room, then opened the door I just end up with a cold house (whereas in the old one it warmed the upstairs nicely).
I did look at getting some tado smart TRV heads last year but couldn't justify the cost. Maybe I could this year but we're moving house (once it's built) so haven't invested this year either.
When it was just me WFH I did go and turn other radiators down and just heat my room.
Terribly wrong recently, lowest house has dropped to overnight in the cold spell is 12.9c, so using it a lot more, month to mid Nov we used 35m3 gas, to mid Dec it jumped to 200m……. So a bigger bill I guess, slightly comforted by fact that the cold snap appears to end at the weekend and most of our previous bills have been less than half our newly adjusted dd, also I’m guessing that we’ll only have about 4 months at this level of spend.
I bought a 2-probe digital thermometer to balance the radiators properly.
@thisisnotaspoon - which thermometer did you use? There seem to be lots of cheapo pipe thermometers about, but reviews seem to imply they're crap!
We were at a friends at the weekend. Similar size house to ours, but new 1980s vs 1920s. There energy bill is £800 a month and it was not warm. Apparently they have cut back massively as it used to be set to 21. We were always too hot. Ours is set to hit 18 in the mornings and evenings, and currently dd is 280. I’m actually pretty comfortable with a jumper on to about 14 degrees any colder than that it gets uncomfortable.
We’ve had new rads put in as part of an extension. Currently the big one isn’t getting fully hot whilst others are smashing out the heat. Any good links to how to balance the system? (Yes I can use Google but I’d rather go off a recommendation). I’ve gone around turning down rads that are really hot but I’m not sure it’s doing much. All I can think is the big one might have accidentally been plumbed in series with another big rad. Finding out for sure involves massive ballache and disrupting a room that is currently not been trashed by the extension so not something I plan to do soon
A basic £21 one off eBay.
The thermocouple wires seem to the the cheapest wires known to man, and the thermocouple itself just looks like a blob of solder. I used it by cutting some 20mm square pads from a sheet of fluffy fire-reaistant velcro I had lying around from an old project. Stuck the thermocouples onto the pipes with those and it seemed to work well enough.
I doubt it would last for constant use, and clamp on thermocouples would be much easier. But for a one off DIY task I'll probably only ever do a handful of times it was great.
Interestingly even with the pump set on its slowest setting I could only get a 10C rise through the boiler and the same drop in the rads. Most guides recommend a figure somewhere between 10C and 20C. I presumed that like spoke tension, getting it even was more important than the absolute value (i.e. a rads are working equally).
So with the boiler set at 65C out, the return is 55C ish. But even on startup it's 40C out 30C in. Not sure if that means the boilers internall controlls limit the heat rise. The boiler is newish and serviced.
Edit: it was this one off Amazon
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Seems to have worked, OH remarked that all the rads arround the house now usually feel 'teppid' during the day when the heating is on rather than it coming on an the hallway rad (the one that's not TRV controlled) being roasting hot or cold so it seems to have worked. I'll probably give it a 2nd pass at the weekend now it's closer to ballanced to start with.
Mostly wet UFH, so quite efficient.
Is underfloor more efficient than rads? I doubt it as you're always going to be heating the earth to some extent - at least with rads the heat is basically all going into the room.
Is underfloor more efficient than rads?
Yes it is. Between 15 and 40% more efficient apparently.
https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/underfloor-heating-radiators/
Yes it is. Between 15 and 40% more efficient apparently.
Probably depends how you measure it?
I imagine it makes the boiler much more efficient as the circulating temp is much lower.
On the other hand you'd need to put the heating on for hours in the morning just to make it comfortable for the hour between bed and leaving for work. Whereas rads the heating is much more instant.
So probably better if you're retired/WFH/etc and need it on all day.
I imagine it makes the boiler much more efficient as the circulating temp is much lower.
Gotcha.
@Scotroutes. How far along the ignition cycle is it going?
Shpild be fan on, purge combustion chamber. Perform aps test. Go, yes / no.
Some will then check gas train pressure, connectivity.
Then open gas valve primary ( clack)
And then almpst simultaneously ignition, so sparks across the electrodes above the flame bar.
Ionisation check, magic eye or ion probe, but your not getting that far.
If your sensible remove outer metal cover, usually lift straight up andcwatch, listen, to the foring sequence.
My guess either gas train solenoid or aps, chevk click click with a bj on the silicon pipes.
Or electrode erosion causing weak spark or spark too high for tge flame bar.
I am not registered gas engineer, just inquisitive
interesting. We have electric underfloor heating in the bathroom & kitchen, although never used it (except to test it!). That article seems to imply that it's more efficient than gas CH/radiators (although couldn't see they explicitly differentiated between electric and wet underfloor heating?) which goes against my gut feeling!Yes it is. Between 15 and 40% more efficient apparently.
To be honest though those 2 rooms would be the ones I'm least bothered about (especially as the bathroom has the bypass rad so is going to be warm anyway when the CH is on). Seemingly the only real benefit (for us) of the underfloor heating would be warm feet on the tiled floor (if not wearing slippers!) so nothing but a bit of a luxury tbh.
Are you really suggesting people turn off individual radiators two/three times a day?
We do in winter - it's hardly a chore! Turn on bedroom radiator before we go to bed and turn it off when we get up etc...
Seemingly the only real benefit (for us) of the underfloor heating would be warm feet on the tiled floor
I would generally agree with you in that regard.
I have wet UFH in the kitchen and living room, both quite large areas. I only use the kitchen heating and only when it is pretty cold. It takes a while to heat up and I leave the thermostat at 20C.
The fairly small upstairs bathroom has electric UFH, which is pretty useless to me, as I would never leave it on for prolonged periods, due to the higher cost. So all it does is make the tiled floor pleasant to walk on.
Any good links to how to balance the system?
Get an Infra Red thermometer so you can see the temp on the go and return pipes to each radiator instantly. The method is very simple and iterative. In a balanced system all the go pipe temps are the same and all the return pipe temps are the same (with all TRVs fully open). You adjust the lock valve (opposite end to the TRV) to increase / reduce flow to each rad.
Optional step 1: You normally have one radiator the furthest from the boiler, for this one you fully open the lock valve. If you're not sure skip this step.
The method is this: Switch on CH, run round house scanning the temp of all the IN pipes and make a note. Whichever radiator is getting hottest first, restrict him a half turn on on lock valve. Whichever radiator is coolest, open the lockvalve a 1/4 turn. Wait 5 mins and repeat. If all the IN temps seem consistent, move to out flow temps and repeat, whoever has the hottest return temp gets restricted. You'll never get it perfect, but within 2C will be good enough.
Longest heating was on is 2.75 hours a couple of days ago as the hallway was set to 18 from 8 to 2300 and off all night, it then drops to around 15.5c actual temp in the hallway by 8am the following day and that's with -4/-5c outside. I've dropped it down to 17/17.5 now and this has resulted in a reduction to 1.75/2.25 hours a day. Lounge sits between 20 and 21 c as it has a TV/AV amp and various network devices as well as insulated plasterboard but still drops in temp over night.
House was built in 2006 (extremely poorly) and I have spent a fortune in fixing all the issues so I'm still a little disappointed on the drop in temp over night, I suspect if I switched off the heat recovery extract system it would go up in temp but have issues with humidity due the ongoing airtightness improvements I am making. The heat recovery only works so well with a house that will never be passive standard.
However my parents returned after a holiday a couple of days ago to a house at 4c in the coldest room, elsewhere it was 6c. Frozen pipes too -they were lucky they didn't burst.
You’ll never get it perfect, but within 2C will be good enough.
Thanks FF, I'm going to try this as I'm sure my rads are all over the place.
I have all my rads turned on to max (there is method in the madness). I have reduced my flow temp down to about 55c. Takes maybe 5 more minutes to get to target temperature. I have tried to set up my heating so the return into the boiler is as low as possible, to make sure the boiler is condensing, utilising as much latent heat as possible.
https://www.heatgeek.com/stop-turning-off-radiators-in-unused-rooms-it-costs-more/
Is underfloor more efficient than rads? I doubt it as you’re always going to be heating the earth to some extent – at least with rads the heat is basically all going into the room.
Unlikely, this was designed in to start with. There's at least 100mm of insulation, a foil layer and floorboards between the ground and the trays holding the pipes. Wouldn't think you'd lose very much at all through that.
Think they have a layer of concrete in there too.
On a personal note, our gas, electric, phone, broadband, 1 mobile was 100 quid this month. End terrace 2 adults 1 10 year old!
On a work related note my colleague seems to think having the fan heater on all the time is acceptable. It's 27C in the office FFS and the heating is on! Doesn't want to listen, when we ask her to turn it off!
There’s at least 100mm of insulation, a foil layer and floorboards between the ground and the trays holding the pipes
unlikely its as little as that . when we did our extension it was minimum 150mm kingspan or equivalent
Quite possibly, my BiLs extension was 200mm.
The neighbours was half refit and rebuild (taking out ~25 year old UFH and replacing) and half new build (with UFH in a newly built structure). So there were somethings that i would guess weren't 100% to code, or didn't need to be. Also, half the ground floor is over a newly dug basement.
The method is this: Switch on CH, run round house scanning the temp of all the IN pipes and make a note. Whichever radiator is getting hottest first, restrict him a half turn on on lock valve. Whichever radiator is coolest, open the lockvalve a 1/4 turn. Wait 5 mins and repeat. If all the IN temps seem consistent, move to out flow temps and repeat, whoever has the hottest return temp gets restricted. You’ll never get it perfect, but within 2C will be good enough.
Interesting, the method I followed was similar but instead you just worked from the one that got hottest first to the coldest (i.e. from the boiler to the furthest point), and adjusted each one in sequence.
Your method sounds a fair bit quicker as you're effectively doing them all at once.
As I said though our house seems wierd as it only ever gets a 10C differential. Even while warming up (i.e. when you'd expect it to be maxed out) the differential never goes above 12.
Considering that actually, I should make sure the hot water and first hour or two of CH don't overlap, otherwise it'll be pumping cold (<60C) water through the coil in the HW tank!
So I think with us we’ve now seen the impact on gas heating with the new prices / colder weather.
4 bed detached house - late 80’s build so cavity walls but no insulation in then. The loft has maybe 100mm insulation but I’m in the process of topping that up with another 200mm to get it a bit better.
Pre price cap rises we paid £150 for both gas and electric combined.
Just had the latest bill as £140 for electricity and £199 for gas for the 12th Nov-12th dec. Ouch!
We’d stayed off the heating at all pretty much until mid Oct. Now we have it set it 17.5 degrees working from home. Occasional blip to 18 degrees if we’re feeling fancy. Overnight it’s down to 15.5 degrees.
Last winter we wouldn’t have thought too hard about sticking it up to 21 degrees but that would cost a fortune now. Working in long sleeve top with long sleeved sweatshirt or hoodie plus a down gilet over the top most of the time. Just learning to live with more clothes on / less heating.
Not going to be much fun when the energy subsidy is turned off from the government - a couple of months before the mortgage fixed rate runs off July / aug sort of time 🥶
Pump flipped upside down, took about 90 mins because I had to go to B&Q to look for new washers, and they didn't have any of course. So I put the manky old ones back with lots of silicone grease and they seem ok so far.
Boiler controls now work as expected. Setting the dial to 60 degrees means it throttles back as it gets close then runs at low power for ages and eventually turns off at 65, back on after a few minutes. I need to figure out if I am at risk of short cycling now though. Bubbles also disappear immediately whereas before there were always bubbles trapped in the pump because it was trying to pump them downwards and they kept floating back up.
It ran for ages after I fitted it because the house had dropped to 13C
In a balanced system all the go pipe temps are the same and all the return pipe temps are the same
I don't think it's that simple. You don't necessarily want all the rads to be at the same temperature.
Some rooms have more heating requirements than others e.g. our kitchen because it's on the ground floor of a 3 storey house and it has big glass doors and possibly some draughts.
We have a single thermostat controlling the whole house, which is in the hallway. If the hallway heats up before the living room is up to temperature, then the living room stays cold. So I'd ideally like the living room to heat up, then the TRVs will shut it off and divert more heat to the hallway which should be the last one to warm up so it can shut the whole lot off.
Then there's also the question of flow speed. If you have a decent modern boiler it will be adjusted automatically but we don't - our pump only has three settings. The lower you set the flow the greater the difference between flow and return of the boiler, but also the greater the heat lost out of each rad because the water is in there long enough. If the flow is too high then the water isn't in the rads long enough to cool down so your return temp is too high so you risk not condensing. If your rads are balanced the way you want them you can turn them all down to reduce the flow in the entire system. It will result in greater temperature differential at the boiler though and that should not be too great. In my case the manual says not more than 20C and it's generally 15C now. Before I turned the pump the right way up it was often 18-22C but then the burner was on full blast nearly all the time.
I have one of those cheap eBay thermometers, and I taped the probes to some woodworking clamps to attach to the pipes - works a treat.
Re hot water I have set mine to work at different times to the heating
Not going to be much fun when the energy subsidy is turned off from the government – a couple of months before the mortgage fixed rate runs off July / aug sort of time 🥶
I think the hope / wishful thinking is that the cap will run out after everyone's turned the heating off again. Then there's another ~9 months before the heating goes back on for things to hopefully return to some sort of normal.
Saying "the cap is ......" is fairly meaningless as for most people they probably use 80% of their gas in 20% of the year so it really only matters what the cap on gas is Dec/Jan/Feb.
there's no way underfloor heating is 40% more efficient than rads. a boiler may run a little more efficiently with a lower flow temp, but there's no other efficiency to gain - heat has to go somewhere.
additionally electric underfloor heating would be more expensive regardless (even if it was 40% more energy efficient) due to the cost per unit of elec vs gas
there’s no way underfloor heating is 40% more efficient than rads. a boiler may run a little more efficiently with a lower flow temp, but there’s no other efficiency to gain – heat has to go somewhere.
I think 40% is a high claim.
However, I think the efficiency comes from the fact the heat is spread evenly around the whole room and you are not just heating a small area to quite a high temperature and relying on convection to spread it through the room.
there’s no way underfloor heating is 40% more efficient than rads. a boiler may run a little more efficiently with a lower flow temp, but there’s no other efficiency to gain – heat has to go somewhere.
15% from the boiler seems achievable (relative to an averagely badly setup system not the theoretical efficiency), add in 10% losses through an uninsulated floor that would need to be upgraded for UFH and you're then in the middle of that range?
Seems like a cherry picked number though as it's equally very inefficient heating up a concrete slab that'll store heat all day if you're only in the house for short periods. In an extreme example. jumping out of bed, putting a jumper on and going to work uses 100% less energy than any other option. And it'd be a sliding scale from that, to a fan heater in one room, to CH, to UFH. Whereas if you were in the building 24/7 then an electric fan heater would cost an absolute fortune.
Just did a count we have 17 rads and 2 towel rails. About 2/3rds with Trvs. Going to take ages twiddling all those knobs!
I've done a non scientific test of the tails, the big rads flow tail is as hot as the other rads, but its return is luke warm. Its a triple column rad, seems to be the same temp all the way up and I checked for air and non came out. Could the return valve be faulty or something blocking the return pipe? I hope its not the later as its under quite alot of concrete.....anyway of finding out. Plumber who fitted says the system needs balancing hence me having a half arsed go at it without much success
Some of the older valves don't seem to want to move. Is it a matter of a bit more welly to turn, or is it some older valves never shut off (some of the rads are from the 50s at a guess)
Then there’s also the question of flow speed.
Don't go casually adjusting the flow speed on older Grundfos pumps. In my experience they can be a bit temperamental as the starting capacitor gets old and they may not start every time on lower speeds. It's not dangerous (your house won't get warm) but your boiler may not like having its overheat stat and every compression fitting inside it tested.
The speed adjuster is a little bit of bent copper that bridges two electrical contacts and is also prone to making poor connections. If the pump doesn't start one day but isn't seized, you can just put a bigger bend in it with some needle-nose pliers and fix the problem.
I'm amazed by a number of things in this thread.
1: how warm some people choose to run their houses
2: how cold some people choose to run their houses (i know some don't have a choice.)
3: how quickly some houses cool down
4: how slowly some houses heat up
I've been running the woodburner a bit more than usual this week while its been really cold, on the days we run the woodburner, it cuts the gas consumption by 60%. I've yet to work out the cost of the wood vs cost of gas.
3: how quickly some houses cool down
4: how slowly some houses heat up
This has been quite eye-opening for me, comparing the efficiency of housing/heating systems. Had the heating on about 4 hours today and it's not been above 14 degrees, and it's only 3pm... It's about 8 when I get up in the morning. I know others who run the heating for no longer than 4 hours a day and it's about 17 degrees all day.
there’s no way underfloor heating is 40% more efficient than rads
Hmm, again lots of factors. Floor is dead cold in our kitchen which makes it feel far colder than it is, because of the void under the floor which seems to be well ventilated. The rad is at one end, and the cooker is at the other end so you spend time in the coldest spot. Underfloor heating might not be 40% more efficient in terms of heat transferred into the room but if it spreads it about better I can see you'd end up using much less.
I'm now looking at new rads for the living room. £90 each and 4x the heat output, that should help let me run at cooler temps. It's unlikely to be cost effective this winter though. And by the weekend when the cold snap is over, it also probably won't be needed. It was 1C all day today which is exceptional for Cardiff.
Effect of being in a cold room - 21C v 10C; the podcast link is worth listening to.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63602501
There have also been many articles recently by medicos/scientists far better qualified than me - and most posters to this thread - saying that 18C should be regarded as the minimum indoor temperature for residential properties; 18C = 64.5F
From the Centre for Sustainable Energy...
Below 13° - If your home is this cold, it may increase your blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease.
14-15° - If your home is this cold, you may be diminishing your resistance to respiratory diseases.
18° is the recommended night time bedroom temperature.
19-21° is the recommended daytime temperature range for occupied rooms.
See also 1, 2.1 and the conclusion (pg27) in this report...
I would say the facts are clear. There are also reports on the effects on mental health from living in a cold house.
3: how quickly some houses cool down
4: how slowly some houses heat up
This.
As a former domestic energy assessor I'm kinda on top of this stuff anyway, but I'm used to seeing KW heat losses and U values.
Seeing people saying my heating runs for 4 hours and gets to 14 degrees makes it somewhat less abstract.
I've turned my boiler flow temp down to 47 degrees and thought it was slow because it takes about 45 minutes to get to 18 degrees from and overnight 15!
How can that advice take account of what people are wearing?
19-21 seems pretty high and imagine most houses have only been able to achieve that since the mid to late 20th century.
If you've got warm clothes on then I don't really see the issue of being at 16 rather than 21.
Seeing people saying my heating runs for 4 hours and gets to 14 degrees makes it somewhat less abstract.
I'll add that the house is double glazed, all windows closed, no drafts, and insulation in the loft. I can imagine people living in much worse.
Temps have been sub-zero for over a week though, as low as -5.
This has been quite eye-opening for me, comparing the efficiency of housing/heating
Me too. I thought our house was utter garbage but compared to some others, clearly not. 1980s cheap build, but could be so much worse. I think back to being a kid at my mums, an Edwardian terrace, and dread to think what it would cost to heat that 6 bed monster now 😱 even our first house built in 1925 would be awful, it had no loft insulation or cavity wall insulation.
I might whinge about costs but I'm lucky. Not as lucky as some - I'm definitely not 'well off', certainly, but certainly a damn site luckier than others. I told my employer we shouldn't be claiming expenses for Xmas team stuff we should pay ourselves, and get what we would have claimed, donated by our company to one of our charity partners. None of my immediate colleagues agreed (most earn more than me). Saddened me no end. I've donated what I 'spent' to a local food bank.
Just in response to another point, I wear shorts all year round unless in the office. Not cos I'm willy-waving (I can't find it at the moment it's a tad chilly), geet hard as owt, or virtue-signalling, it's comfort. If I was walking a long distance I'd wear long troos, but I have medical condition and I've found air-flow helps. You know what, let folk be who they are, judge a little less, and you might just be a tad happier/less of a knob/more content... <delete/add as applicable>
Pre central heating, most houses had open fires; get one of those going with internal doors open and most of the house warmed quickly.
Every (?) house had curtains in all rooms other than kitchen and bathroom; some had heavy weight for winter and lightweight when temperatures rose.
I'm sure that the science underpinning the links I posted is robust.
Being static in a cool room when layered up does not prevent the body temp from falling; try it - extremities will gradually become cold as the body tries to maintain core temp.
You think 19 - 21C (66 - 70F) seems pretty high for occupied rooms?
Agree - in summer.
I have no problem with cold weather but have enough common sense to be aware of the science and act accordingly.