Not putting the heating on – how’s it going…?

@inkster
Free Member
“Lol”

The effect is real (in some, quite specific circumstances) but your explanation is way off.

Crucially you need a high surface area to volume ratio. So you put a tray of boiling water in the freezer and a tray of tap water. Then enough of the boiling water evaporates quickly enough initially that there’s a reduced volume of water left to freeze, so it does it quicker than the still full tray of tap water.

If for example you put two containers of water outside with lids on, the cold one would freeze first.

(also in the case of trying to demonstrate it in a freezer, the boiling water will trigger the thermostat so the freezer is actively trying to cool it down)

In the previous 7days I’ve managed to burn through 4 bags coal @ £12/bag and half of a £70 load of logs, stove has been in constant use 24hrs day, pretty expensive for a 1bed bungalow so this cold weather can **** right off, I’m getting rather pissed off at being cold all the time.

We’ve had the heating on 24/7 last few days due to the temperatures. Gone through about £8.50 of gas a day, or about 85 KWh per day. That’s up from 50 earlier in the month.

Daughter’s boyfriends parents haven’t had the heating on due to a fault with the boiler – not had it fixed yet. They are running the wood burner in the lounge, but rest of house freezing, so much so, they had no water this morning – pipes frozen. It’s just not worth freezing – colleagues have been sat at home in coats due to the cost.

The folk in Shetland with no electricity age getting £30 /24hrs freezing their nuts off, must keep receipts for food made for them to get their money back yet the CEO of sse was paid £4000000 or thereabouts last year and probably a good few others in the company very well paid

I don’t really get the connection between what the CEO is paid and an unusual weather event wrecking infrastructure owned by the company. Would it make any difference if he was paid half as much, or worked for free?

The folk in Shetland with no electricity age getting £30 /24hrs freezing their nuts off, must keep receipts for food made for them to get their money back yet the CEO of sse was paid £4000000 or thereabouts last year and probably a good few others in the company very well paid

I don’t really get the connection between what the CEO is paid and an unusual weather event wrecking infrastructure owned by the company. Would it make any difference if he was paid half as much, or worked for free?

sounds like an improved situation over that of storm arwen in the north east of scotland .

It’s just not worth freezing

A lot of people I know have literally no choice at all. They live in rented houses which were the best they could get when they needed one, and they have terrible insulation and rubbish heating systems. They aren’t doing it through choice.

No insulation in my housing association bungalow and ashp that’s been switched off since last January as it’s **** useless, thank god I fitted a stove and took a can of compressed foam to the air bricks as my neighbours with the same system are using £20+ day for sod all effective heat as these bungalows just piss heat from everywhere, no insulation under wooden floors, no wall insulation, thin 30yr old double glazing and minimal attic floor insulation.

A question for those who don’t have a thermostat controlling the ‘constant’ temp in their house, and are putting the CH on twice a day:
Do you have your rads turned up to maximum in order to max the heat output for the short few hours per day its on?

@fazzini even without a room thermostat, your boiler is thermostatically controlling the water temperature.

When your heating is on at the programmer your boiler will burn until the water temperature reaches a set temp, typically 70 deg. Then the burn will stop but the circulating pump will continue. As the radiators cool the circulating water, the boil will kick in again to maintain the set temp.

So if you turn your radiators “to max” your boiler will burn more fuel.

Thanks @goldfish24 I think I’ve reached sense-overload with trying to make sure I’m maximising the times it is on, so as not to waste money.

took a can of compressed foam to the air bricks

given your description of the general breeziness of the house I suppose this is unlikely to result in moisture accumulation and then damp.

Boiler condensate pipe blocked. The S bend was cakes with black gunge, the combustion chamber was full of slurry. I only found this out after I removed the cover and it poured everywhere. Should have freed up the drain hole first.

Now I have to try and unblock the drain pipe. It’s behind the tiles, plasterboard, cupboard and worktop…

Then the burn will stop but the circulating pump will continue

Everything stops on mine when the tank is up to temp

I don’t really get the connection between what the CEO is paid and an unusual weather event wrecking infrastructure owned by the company.

In this specific case, there’s virtually no relationship at all. More generally it’s the continuing under-investment in infrastructure upgrades and robustness (and repair capacity) because they are maximising shareholder value.

Would it make any difference if he was paid half as much, or worked for free?

No, it’s 100s of millions that they need to invest. Though, you’d probably end up with an even worse CEO. If that were possible.

Got up in the morning yesterday at 10c in the living room.
Today slightly less so at 12c … I think I need to grow more hairs on my body.

Oh ya, my duvet is only 10.5 tog (I have 13 tog something but not used yet) synthetic stuff but I have this massive alpaca mixed with normal wool “bed cover” I put on my bed as bed sheet and that is actually warm to sleep on top of it. Bottom line is wool is much warmer so I shall invest in more wool stuff or grow more body hairs. LOL!

“Crucially you need a high surface area to volume ratio”

Erm… like with an Ice cube tray? Which divides am already small body of water into about 16 even smaller bodies of water?

Bottom line is wool is much warmer so I shall invest in more wool stuff or grow more body hairs. LOL!

I can’t be the only one that saw this, and thought of this…??? 😜

Been interesting during the cold snap to test what temp we can get the house up to. Turns out it’s around 17-18C with 0C outside. That’s with everything flat out.

Also hadn’t really realised, but with SMART TRVs, the temp you set seems to be the temp it reads sat right next to the radiator – so bears no relationship to the room temp. So you can set a rad to 21C and the room is still much below that.

Anyway, so we’ve used loads of wood the last week or so.

“I can’t be the only one that saw this, and thought of this…??? 😜”

Chewy’s identity finally revealed, and the answer was there all along…

Zoning in on waste heat, I have to think about pipe insulation. Our newish boiler is in a small side extension (utility area) that doesn’t need heating. The pipes (3) with about a 6M run – going to the upstairs radiators are clipped the the wall (modern clips so very close to the wall) and pretty close together (clips butted up) so that the normal cylindrical insulation won’t fit.
Any ideas?
Shame to waste all that heat. Into walk and into unused room.
I’m actually wondering if all pipes below floors should really be lagged. Ridiculous heating the underfloor voids.
System is probably 25+ years old. Boiler recent.
Any heating experts?
Thx

so that the normal cylindrical insulation won’t fit.

Use a sharp knife to bevel an edge onto the insulation so that it butts up between pipes? Or just box it in. I’ve actually taken a piece of insulation off my pipes in a similar design to try to take a bit of an edge off the chill in the garage.

A question for those who don’t have a thermostat controlling the ‘constant’ temp in their house, and are putting the CH on twice a day:
Do you have your rads turned up to maximum in order to max the heat output for the short few hours per day its on?

Pretty much what we do, there is a room thermostat which cuts the CH at 18C and the radiator TRVs are fully open for the rooms we want to heat. Boiler is set to max flow temp (30+ year old non condensing model). Just heat the house up as quick as possible and then let it slowly cool off during the day / night. The thermostat will switch it back on if it drops below 14C during the day / night, which it has once so far this winter (when -10 outside) and that was only 1 hour before the evening slot came round anyway.

Also hadn’t really realised, but with SMART TRVs, the temp you set seems to be the temp it reads sat right next to the radiator – so bears no relationship to the room temp. So you can set a rad to 21C and the room is still much below that.

They apply an algorithm to account for that. In my set up (Wiser) they’re all pretty accurate apart from the kitchen/diner (1 small rad for the space, and therefore underpowered I expect) where the room always tends to be 2-3c below what it states in the app.

Anyone else using radbot TRVs. I got some in the kids room, as I got divorced the rooms are only occupied half the week but the radbot learns occupancy. I’ve got my daily gas cost down to 5 or 6 quid, but using wood in the lounge in the evening.

Hi Flaperon thanks
The gap between the pipes and between pipes and wall is less than the lagging thicknesss. Any chance of a pic of your install so I can see what going on please?
N

Now I have to try and unblock the drain pipe. It’s behind the tiles, plasterboard, cupboard and worktop

Compressor or tubeless inflator on the end of the blocked pipe and blow it through?

Or explode the pipe. I managed to get about 3m of pipe cleaning spring in there but it still won’t drain so there must be a blockage right at the end. Possibly frozen somewhere outside. But it’s never frozen before and it’s been this cold.

Re pipe lagging: the flow temperature on the boiler is 60C and the hottest the kitchen radiator can get (the furthest one) is 52.C

They apply an algorithm to account for that. In my set up (Wiser)…

Interesting, thanks. That makes more sense. Mine are Wiser too.

Perhaps our old cottage and the very low temps means the algorithm isn’t quite right. All the radiators are a decent size, although they are the trad style downstairs.

I can’t be the only one that saw this, and thought of this…??? 😜

That would be good to save heating bill. LOL!

Chewy’s identity finally revealed, and the answer was there all along…

LOL! I asked my Finnish friend if I could buy some sami clothing to keep warm and she told me it would be cultural in appropriation. LOL!

Went to John Lewis earlier and bought a king size Devon wool duvet medium weigh 600g 10-14 tog. Discounted from £170 to £119 as it is the last one there. I don’t think it is used … hmmm … but the carried bag is slightly tear at one side. The duvet is not that thick or particularly heavy but let see if it is warm enough.

Went to John Lewis

Unless I’ve got this way wrong on where you are, Bainbridge’s not John Lewis 😜 (at least still in my mind)

Also bought it just in time for the temps to rise it’s due to be 15 daytime and 8 night in the NW on Monday!

Interesting, thanks. That makes more sense. Mine are Wiser too.

I also have wiser. They are out by about 3 degrees against room temp. It’s a regular occurrence going by the wiser forums.

Unless I’ve got this way wrong on where you are, Bainbridge’s not John Lewis

Ha, that’s a blast from the past. Anyone else also remember Heelas in Reading?

(Mum’s family from the Toon, I was born and brought up in Reading)

Also bought it just in time for the temps to rise it’s due to be 15 daytime and 8 night in the NW on Monday!

LOL! Temps to rise to 15c? That will be brilliant. My bedroom temp was 7.8c two nights ago which is freezing. My record was 4c but no fun as my back hurts after waking up in the morning.

Oh that’s the most expensive duvet I have bought in my life! I have never bought a duvet beyond £50 to be honest. Damn the inflation!

Unless I’ve got this way wrong on where you are, Bainbridge’s not John Lewis

No idea if it was formerly Bainbridge but in Toon it is John Lewis.

Ha, that’s a blast from the past. Anyone else also remember Heelas in Reading?
(Mum’s family from the Toon, I was born and brought up in Reading)

You have become a softy Southerner you should come back to the cold NE to toughen yourself up. Feel the cold and freezing house. LOL!

Ha, that’s a blast from the past

Wait til I mention Binns and Farnons!! Memories to warm the cockles…just as well given the cost of CH 😬😳

Fitted a temporary drain pipe into the sink, heating works again but now delta T at the boiler is about 33C rather than 22C. So it seems like the heat is transferring more effectively without a litre of water in the heat exchanger. I could hear the dripping occasionally, didn’t twig what it was.

It occurs to me that if my boiler was running backwards it would never have been condensing, except for a few seconds early on in the burn. So perhaps my drain has been blocked for ages and since I sorted it out it’s just back filled the pipe. I can’t see how to fix this; the pipe must go into the cavity and goodness knows where. I will just have to run a new pipe in.

Ha, that’s a blast from the past. Anyone else also remember Heelas in Reading?

(Mum’s family from the Toon, I was born and brought up in Reading)

I do! Born and lived in Reading till I went to Uni.

Bainbridges – just off Bigg Market; wow – decades ago.
Good to see that Fenwick are still going strong!
As for Binns and Farnons – I think my long dead mother is stirring in her grave.
My home town was Wallsend…
Wallsend born, Wallsend bred, Strong in the arm, Thick in the head – but can be modified for any location.
Educated and socialised in Newcastle.
Any memories of the Spit’n’Vomit opposite the Central?
Shudders…