Decided i am not going to sit and be cold. If it costs more then it costs more and sitting in the cold does your health no good at all.

Last evening was the first night I switched on the central heating for this first time to boost the temperature up to 17c. My room temperature was down to 14c and bedroom down to 10c so I decided it was a bit cold to sit around working until late evening.

Now, the temperature has dropped to 14c (22:40hr) again so I shall see how I how long will I last before I switch on the central heating. Normally, I don’t switch the heating until December but due to the sudden dropped in temperature I have to break my rules.

LOL! It’s freezing! Feel like being tortured in icebox.

p/s: If I switch on the central heating for 1.15 mins it will increase by 3c from 14c to 17c after that it will struggle a bit.

chewkw – suggest you find and read article by James Gallagher on BBC website about how low temperatures indoors affect physical performance and cognitive ability.
It was written after he went through a lab test so everything was accurately measured.
At 10 – 14C, you aren’t doing yourself any favours; recommended minimum is 18C.

Had the wood burner lit for several hours today. Room temp was down to 9°c, raised it to a toasty 15°c at waist height. Had the ceiling fan running to mix the air evenly.
Electric blanket for night time. Fan heater for short burst room heating, infrared panel heater for medium length sitting around watching TV.
Sub 5°c outside and I might consider the gas central heating. Maybe later in the week?

chewkw – suggest you find and read article by James Gallagher on BBC website about how low temperatures indoors affect physical performance and cognitive ability.
It was written after he went through a lab test so everything was accurately measured.
At 10 – 14C, you aren’t doing yourself any favours; recommended minimum is 18C.

That’s a good information. Thanks. Will check the information out.
Yes, sitting in the room at 14c feels rather weird tbh.
Switched on the heater just now to 17c again. Took a hot shower and wear jumpers etc to maintain warm.
It’s going to be a freezing winter.

I’m running it at a toasty 22c.

Had to switch the heating on yesterday, the heat from cooking just didn’t cut it anymore. The trouble is that I’ve got storage heaters on Economy 7 so it heats the house overnight meaning I’m hot in the morning and it’s cool in the afternoon, makes choosing a setting really hard to as there’s a 24hr delay. Cheap to run but very annoying.

Ours has been coming on in the mornings for a week or so as the house has been below 14. The thermostat is set at 17, which seems to be okay for setting the house for a sunny day, but on a dull day, it’s still cold in the afternoon for WFH.

No thermostat here so have timer set for 2 hours in the morning, then put on manually in the late afternoon/evening depending. Also seems my really old TRVs are not working properly. If you set to low settings,for example, there is no heat to rads at all. So, I can either have the rads off or at full whack. As it’s coming into coldest part of the year, is it worth getting quotes to replace them all now, or wait?? Anyone else had the same dilemma?(This is not a DIY job for me.)

Is that not how TRVs work? they turn the rads off according to the temperature setting you set them to?

Second month with heating on using Tado thermostats. Last year’s consumption was 95kWh/day in November, this year we’re averaging 35/day. Of course weather has been warmer this year, so not a fair comparison, but the greatest consumption in one day has been 55kWh, so I reckon we’re on the right track. Boiler flow temp also turned down, but will need to wait for colder weather to see if it is high enough.

Is that not how TRVs work?

That’s what I thought @tjagain, however, there is literally a point where they are fully off, or fully on. I thought if it was set at, let’s say 2, there would still be some heat to that rad as required by the valve so you had some control. There appears to be no temp control at all using the 1 – 6 scale. It’s either on – full heat or off – no heat at all. As an example, the radiator feels no different in one bedroom regardless of whether the TRV is set at 3 or 6. Turn it just below the 3 mark and the rad is cold and gets no heat at all.

What you describe is a valve.

A thermostatic valve in your case at 3 and not heating simply means at your setting of 3 the room temperature keeps the rad shut off.

If the room dips below that temperature the valve opens and rad gets hot.

Thats how they work – the number on the dial is the level at which it turns on and off.

The higher the number the higher the temp at which the TRV turns the rad off

Yes if you set it to 3 and the room is at the temperature that corresponds to 4 then it’ll be off, and the rad will be cold. But if the room is at 2 then it’ll come on and the rad will be hot.

I put my trv to the frost setting in the spare room but it’s just full on unless I turn off completely. The room was toasty so it seems to me it’s not working and is either full on or full off same as Fazzini’s problem there is no sensitivity with it turning on and off depending on room temp. Also the trv in my bedroom is permanently on even in the off position. Any ideas on a DIY fix?

They can fail, one of ours has. You can replace the control part of it which is a simple DIY fix apparently. Never done it though. And none of the ones in B&Q look like mine.

Most are pretty crude. Material that expands/contracts with temperature, that presses on a sprung valve that controls flow to the radiator.

Valves can stick open or closed, if they aren’t fitted well the thermostatic part won’t move the valve. Etc etc.

Usually pretty easy to remove the trv heads and check if the piston actuating the valve is stuck or not – I’ve resurrected some old ones previously.

I cracked and put it on Tuesday when the inside temp hit 12C at midday.

On the upside, 16-17C now feels pretty toasty as we’re in the good habit of getting up and putting jumpers on.

That’s what I thought @tjagain, however, there is literally a point where they are fully off, or fully on. I thought if it was set at, let’s say 2, there would still be some heat to that rad as required by the valve so you had some control. There appears to be no temp control at all using the 1 – 6 scale. It’s either on – full heat or off – no heat at all. As an example, the radiator feels no different in one bedroom regardless of whether the TRV is set at 3 or 6. Turn it just below the 3 mark and the rad is cold and gets no heat at all.

Yup, that’s how they’re supposed to work, they’re not generally intended to be modulating valves. That would require some clever tinkering and setting them up, whereas what you have is a little bimetalic spring and a preload adjuster.

It would also be noisy trying to let a small amount of water flow through the valve.

Switched on the heater just now to 17c again. Took a hot shower and wear jumpers etc to maintain warm.

Don’t you take 30 minute showers? Cut them in half and run the heating.

Still not on but cheating by running a wood burner in the lounge for 4 hrs or so each evening. Looking into putting 2 pc fans in the connecting walls to even the heat flow, there’s a hell of a diffence im room temperature that makes the rest of the flat feel really cold.
Gotta be quiet and low voltage so will scour RS this afternoon

Confused by the suggestion a wood burner isn’t heating.

Anyhow, had ours on for 3 weeks now since the Wiser system was installed. Enjoying the graphs, last couple of days showing highest usage so far.

Oooh graphs. Sounds like that could be as useful as the ability to turn rooms down.

Don’t forget turning rooms up.

That would require some clever tinkering and setting them up, whereas what you have is a little bimetalic spring and a preload adjuster.

I thought they contained a wax cartridge that does the expanding and contracting? They do modulate to some extent as it changes gradually. Turning the adjuster moves things up and down so it has more or less distance to move to press the pin the same amount.

It would also be noisy trying to let a small amount of water flow through the valve.

This is often the case; they whistle as they start turning off.

Got both woodburner and heating going (albeit at a reduced boiler temp) and I’ve used about a year’s worth of wood so far already. Current gas and elec usage is tracking at about £10 per day for both.

Octopus want to put our monthly payment up to £480. A few years ago I remember paying about £40/month. I’m going to phone them and tell them no, because that’s unaffordable. It’s finally made the wife, who is renowned for not listening and always being right, realise it’s quite a problem.

So need to get more insulation in the loft. Plan is to go with whatever foam board I get on top of the existing boards and reboard over that. Then a load of regular fluff stuff round the sides to bulk that out. Question is how thin is too thin for the new boards? Considering they will be flat on the foam board would 9mm be ok? Thinking of the weight for both me hulking it around and also the added weight the roof needs to support. 18mm in whatever wood based material you go for is chuffing heavy!

Octopus want to put our monthly payment up to £480.

Pardon, what, eh!!

Bulb put ours up to £190 earlier this year but then we gradually got into loads of credit so I knocked it down to £145. Got the bill today to say we’ve used £109 worth of energy over the last month (that’s gas & electric). Then we got the winter payment so we’re still in far too much credit. At least we’ll stay warm.

3 bed detached, 12 radiators.

I generally leave my thermostat at 16c, I’ll boost it up to 19c for a few hours here and there.

Allegedly my living room is 16.5c at the moment, so the boiler is dormant and I feel plenty warm enough. But I am wearing slippers, merino long-johns under my trakky bottoms, and a fleece top with a regualr cotton t-shrt underneath.

Outside is 8c, inside is 12c, I’ve got twins in nursey 3.5 days a week so mine won’t be going on unless they’re here this winter, I’d not noticed it until this week but it’s got chilly.

I’m usually up and out in the morning, in the office all day then straight to gym after work so I’m not usually in till gone 8, and by that time after warm food and a tea it hardly seems worth having it on during the week, but…

Any recommendations for relatively inexpensive (<£50) quilted blankets etc. for sofa use?

Am a bit weary of the house feeling damp if it’s not heated for extended periods but a couple of windows (bedroom being one) are left on the latch most days.

I have next week off so part of that will be making the house a bit warmer where I can but there’s already 300mm insulation in the loft and the easy stuff done.

The trouble is that I’ve got storage heaters on Economy 7 so it heats the house overnight meaning I’m hot in the morning and it’s cool in the afternoon

I had this in one place. The heat just leaked out. If I had them now I’d be considering some kind of blanket or insulation to try and keep more heat in until I needed it.

I thought they contained a wax cartridge that does the expanding and contracting? They do modulate to some extent as it changes gradually. Turning the adjuster moves things up and down so it has more or less distance to move to press the pin the same amount.

I though they worked on a spring, but either way they’re not intended to modulate, the system wouldn’t respond correctly anyway as you’d have proportional control which tends to never quite reach the set point so it would take ages to actually warm the room up. Whereas what you want is the room to warm up quickly, then it all stays fairly constant as the rate you can add (or lose) heat is relatively small.

It’s not like the burner on a boiler where modulating a valve has an immediate impact on the boiler temperature.

Had to switch the heating on yesterday, the heat from cooking just didn’t cut it anymore. The trouble is that I’ve got storage heaters on Economy 7 so it heats the house overnight meaning I’m hot in the morning and it’s cool in the afternoon, makes choosing a setting really hard to as there’s a 24hr delay. Cheap to run but very annoying.

Check the settings, most old radiators have an input (which sets the temp of the bricks), and an output (which lets the air flow over them.

You need to have the output dial closed all the time. This lets a small amount of heat leak out of the radiator all day but it stays warm-ish. Then you open the output in the evening to let the last of the heat out if needed.

Also, see if you can get an economy 5+1 tariff or similar. Same idea as economy 7, but you get an extra hour in the afternoon to warm up the storage heaters, water cylinder etc.

You need to have the output dial closed all the time. This lets a small amount of heat leak out of the radiator all day but it stays warm-ish. Then you open the output in the evening to let the last of the heat out if needed.

That’s what I had – the output dial operated a flap (mechanically!) that let air flow through. But yeah by 11.30pm there was nothing left, it’d all leaked out.

Octopus want to put our monthly payment up to £480.

Same here. Though in fairness it’s a suggestion and no attempt to actually do it yet. It’s also based on a lot of assumptions from last winter that may not be the same this, though I do like their new forecast tool that shows how they came to it………I just hope it’s not correct!!

It’s working well for me today. The bloody boiler has gone on the Fritz!

For anyone tinkering with water temps in the house make sure the hot tank temp is set below the boiler temp. Otherwise when you have the water come on it runs for the whole period set rather than using the tank stat to turn it off.

Edit: please don’t ask how I know!

I had closed my bedroom window but opened it again last night as I was too warm. No heating yet.

Do the people in 12C houses just never wash their clothes? Ours take days to dry even with the heating on given it’s rained too much to ever refresh the air in the house. I put the duvet cover outside in the sun all day yesterday and it had barely dried at all.