Central heating question – what's the most economical of these …

… heating methods?

1) keep all rads on in all rooms so as to keep an ambient temp throughout the house
2) only use the rads in the rooms you’re spending time in

Fair enough, it might depend on size of house, general effectiveness of boiler, etc. All rads have stats.

Looking at ways to save on oil this winter.

TVM

I can’t see what would be economic about heating an unused room, I certainly don’t.

I can’t see what would be economic about heating an unused room, I certainly don’t.

Presumably the Heat from rooms you are heating will escape into the icebox rooms, unless they are all individually insulated from each other?

Fair enough – but more than the energy required to heat the room itself?

Doesn’t add up to me, I am of course no expert 😀

Close the doors to rooms you arent using and turn the heating off in those rooms.

Al, I am no expert myself, I am just pondering.
I have read somewhere before about heating blocks of rooms though.

On the same theme, I have a combi boiler with all radiators in the house having TRVs. For efficiency, should I set the boiler temp to high so very hot water is going to the rads which will then ‘click off’ earlier, or have the boiler temp set to medium?

In other words, if 3 on a TRV vaguely represents a temperature which I believe it does, should the feed into the rads be hot or does it have no overall effect?

I guess I should test it – have all rads set to 3 and then set boiler to high and see how often and for how long the boiler fires, and then set boiler to medium and compare.

Overall must be cheaper to use less radiators in your house as there are less of them on

Ensure you have lots of insulation in the loft and walls, wear an extra layer (we all wonder around in jus a t-shirt) and keep doors closed so heat doesn’t escape.

skillwill,

asked the same question to our boiler service man, he came up with the idea you use a low setting on the boiler and set the rads to what temp you want. Similar idea about not using full throttle on a car to get to the speed you want, use half throttle and use lots less fuel. Currently boiler set to minimum and doing fine.

The more heat you have in your house, the more will escape to the outside.

Which is why the ‘leave it on all the time to save it having to heat up the house from cold each morning’ doesn’t quite add up.

Although people have claimed it saves money.. Not sure why this would be.

Re the boiler temp – you’re supposed to set it on max, it’s more efficient that way.

Hmm, insulation is surprisingly good for the type of build, so I think I’ll stick with heating only the rooms we’re using. TVM.

Set the room temperatures to what you want rather than heat the whole house up. In effect set up zones in the house so keep doors closed where you want different temperatures. Make sure all insulation is good – curtains, liners, any air gaps around doors / windows, loft – surprising how much difference it makes.

The boiler installer said to set the boiler temp to max for the radiators but I’m not sure if that was based on science or just what he was told. I think that a combi has to have a certain return temperature to be more efficient. It’s something I’ve intended to look into at some point ….

And a question ….. is it worthwhile balancing the radiators if you’ve got TRV’s? Or so long as the room with the room thermostat in heats up last is this OK?

If you have TRVs I *think* you have to have some that don’t, since at least some heat needs to be dissipated. We’ve got a three storey new build house, and the hallway and landings are non TRV. I have had to balance them to try and offset the incredibly hot top landing and freezing cold bottom landing.

You have to have that doesn’t have a trv to make sure there isn’t a dead head for the heating pump to pump against if all rooms are warm enough. It’s not about heat dissipation, just flow.

OK so one ‘low’ and two ‘max’!

You have to have that doesn’t have a trv to make sure there isn’t a dead head for the heating pump to pump against if all rooms are warm enough. It’s not about heat dissipation, just flow.

I leave the family bathroom rad fully open, no one likes a cold dunny.