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The warmer your house, the more heat you lose to the outside. So if it's warm all the time, you're losing lots of heat all the time. If you let it get cold at night and in the daytime when you're out, it's not losing as much.
The warmer your house, the more heat you lose to the outside. So if it's warm all the time, you're losing lots of heat all the time. If you let it get cold at night and in the daytime when you're out, it's not losing as much.
Sound theory, but what about the thermal mass of surfaces throughout the house - if they keep getting very cold, they keep needing to be warmed up more to reach a comfortable temperature.
(we were told by our heating engineer to keep heating on all the time for the most efficient heating BTW). Although he may have meant to create a more comfortable environment rather than having colder periods. I can't say we have noticed an increase in heating costs since we started this last autumn (even with the very cold winter) but we did change boiler too.
"Thermostat is set to 15. It goes off completely when the kids go to bed at half-eight and then we have jumpers on and/or a fire."
Your fire will be far less efficient than a central heating boiler.
My fire runs on logs that I pick up from the woods.
If I didn't have a fire I would run the heating for a bit in the evening probably. But not at blimin' 20 degrees!
No thermostat, but storage heaters, so it's boiling hot at 5am, and freezing by 5pm 🙂
we haven't got one 🙁 Oil heating??
Oil heating still governed by thermostat. Mine is anyway!
We used to have electric storage heaters in an apartment we lived in, they should be banned IMO, horribly expensive and utter rubbish. Never ever turned 'em on after the first month or so of living there and bought a portable gas fire, much more efficient!
Mines off and I strut around in shorts still.
If I get cold I'll put on a jumper, if I get real cold I'll start wearing some of my winter down kit 😉
My wife is always cold, so we're at a toasty 22deg.
I live in shorts & t-shirt all year round.
Depends on where the stat is located though.
Ours is in the living room, and is set to a comfortable 20°C between 6-10pm this time of year. All rads are balanced & have TRV's.
Next-door neighbour (with same layout house) has the stat in the hallway, yet mocks that his house feels like a sauna when his is set to 16°C (it does, it's easily over 23°C in the main living areas), so must be better insulated etc.
Smug git doesn't seem to understand that the stat will only click on when it's ambient temp is at that specific level for the area it is in!
Our hallway is easily 3-4°C
the stat will only click on
With the electronic ones I understand they throttle the boiler so as it reaches the required temperature it keeps switching on and off (as opposed to blasting out at full power until the temperature is reached)
And just seen this on the Bosch website...
[i]When set up correctly, a programmable room thermostat prevents the system from having to heat the house from a ‘cold start’. The control always maintains a temperature within the property and this ensures that the boiler is only ever ‘topping up’ the temperature in the home. As a guideline, target temperatures should be set at 21 C for comfort temperature and 15 C for economy temperature.[/i]
With the electronic ones I understand they throttle the boiler so as it reaches the required temperature it keeps switching on and off
Maybe some do, our Honeywell electronic one (on a 2-wire setup) doesn't. Boiler runs at full tilt until the stat temp is reached, then clicks off. If it drops half a degree below that, then it fires again etc, whereas the old dial one dropped a good 2 degrees before clicking on again. It just maintains the desired temp better.
So, much like the old dial one it replaced but with a much smaller, whaddayacallit, hysteresis?
My central heating broke three years or more ago, the pump failed. I can't be arsed to fix it, I just sport a natty line in striped merino beanies over the winter, wear lots of layers and stoke the internal heater with lots of riding and running. Can't stand central heating, feels stifling and generally unhealthy. 😉
66F. Since I grew up in the metric system, and Canada is metric, I have no idea what that actually means.
Set ours to 15 degrees but not used it yet this winter - have had a few log fires though. When it does get cold an hour or 2 in the morning and a few more in the evening is all it'll be on. When it gets cold at night I'll put some pyjamas on but it doesn't get that cold in Surrey.
Not had ours on yet. Relying on the flat underneath to heat ours, they run theirs flat out so I'm sitting here with the window open at the moment. 🙂
The inlaws have theirs set at 25c+ and it is always roasting when we are down there.
That must be their temperature though as when they see us they complain that we keep our house too cold.
I was under the impression that a fair to well insulated house was cheaper to heat by just turning on the heating as required, but if you were in a big old stone built house that you should leave the heating on as it takes so long to heat the structure up. Our house seems to heat up very quickly when needed so we leave the heating off when we are out.
I do wonder if we would be better replacing our standard stat with a wireless gizmo that will keep the house at say 12 degrees when we are out and overnight, bumping up to 16-18 when we are in, rather than now when if we get up in the early hours during winter you can see your breath 🙂
No thermostat, we have a choice of on or off.
I don't see the point in being cold when I don't have to be. I don't mind wearing a jumper in the winter, i'm less keen on wearing a down jacket indoors.
The funny thing is, colleagues who like to spout off about 'just put a jumper on' etc. have huge gas bills in comparison to ours which is ~20 quid a month (Cooking, heating, hot water).
It was even lower when we lived somewhere with a fancy thermostat, heating 'on' 18 hours a day but set to turn on at 12 degrees during the day when we weren't in and 18/19 degrees at night.
Absolutely no idea. Don't even know where the thermostat is.
If it's cold I put on a fleece. If it's a bit colder I turn the heating on manually. It is NEVER on in the morning before work. Don't see the point. In Winter the heating may be on for about 3 hrs in the evening, and turned off as soon as the kids are in bed.
Heating on overnight? WTF?
Way too many people have their heating up too high.
An observation - All our outdoor, mtbing type friends have their heating on at a fairly low temp. Whereas all my other friends have it far too high.
Ours is about 17c except the lounge which is quite warm with the woodburner.
In winter I have been known to wear 3 fleeces, a hat and scarf indoors. Ooh and have a hot water bottle for the bed.
it's set to "off" at the mo, just wear loads of clothes, cos I'm a tight/poor bastard. Got no central heating, just a couple of oil filled radiiators, that, gawd bless 'em, give off loads of heat. The thermostat goes up to 9, float around 3-6 when it's cold, 9 is PROPER cold. I've no idea what temperature it ever is, just a number between 3 and 9!
Thermostat is at the top of the stairs. TRV's on all radiators...
Stat is set at 13-14 degrees...
Log burner in the keeps the lounge (and the room above, our bedroom, toasty!)
tween 15 18 ish. Except when i come in from work & find in on 100!
15 deg all the time, can wear T-shirts in the house. Based in Yorkshire.
Only on STW can a discussion about thermostat settings turn into willy-waving...
I'm amazed at how hot some people have their houses! I'm afraid we are a generation of utter utter softies.
No; we just have different levels of comfort, and some need more heat than others. Speshly older people.
Just have it on to the temp you feel comfortable at.
No; we just have different levels of comfort, and some need more heat than others.
We get used to different levels of comfort. Some like more heat than others. We certainly don't *need* it. It's only relatively recently that central heating has given us the option of unseasonally warm or cool temperatures.
I have low blood pressure. I feel the cold more than others. I don't see why I should sit feeling cold and uncomfortable just because other people feel comfortable in cooler temperatures.
Sound theory, but what about the thermal mass of surfaces throughout the house - if they keep getting very cold, they keep needing to be warmed up more to reach a comfortable temperature.
The only place the energy is lost is across the wall/roof/window boundaries. While you may heat up the contents of the house, and it take slightly longer to heat up as you heat up your thermal masses, it also takes longer for them to cool down and keeps the room warmer on the cool-down, meaning you can turn your heating off earlier and the room is still comfy for longer - i.e. energy in = energy out so no net loss.
That's the theory, and I've tested it in practice and it holds true as I expected. My heating is 19 from 5pm to 10pm, then 14 overnight, then 17 at 6:30 for getting up, and then back off at 8am to 14 during the day. My current bills for an old 3 bed semi in scotland are about 20 quid a month (gas).
marsdenman - Member
Thermostat is at the top of the stairs. TRV's on all radiators...
Stat is set at 13-14 degrees...Log burner in the keeps the lounge (and the room above, our bedroom, toasty!)
Don't be so smug as a lot of the heat from that log burner goes straight up your flume/chimney 😉
^
no it doesn't.
Stoves = more heat into the room and less up the chimney.
Plus your not burning fossil fuels and not heating rooms you're not using.