Gas fire or central heating?

Cherrycola

Which is the cheapest to turn on in this weather?

First off we are in rented accommodation, and the gas fire is currently not working anyway, but LL has given me the ok to organise to have it fixed, but im wondering if i have it fixed will it eventually cost me more money than turning the central heating on(gas heating also)

Its a large house, 2 storey, 5 bedrooms, 7 rads downstairs, and 6 upstairs.
So im wondering would it be cheaper for me just to turn on the heating rather than using the gas fire in the living room? Is it cheaper to heat one room with a gas fire than all with central heating?
This is the first time ive had gas heating in a house, so im clueless.

Thanks

Micky Dolenz

The gas fire will be expensive to run. You could just turn off the rads you don't want to heat. you could turn them all off bar the one in the room you are in. This would be the cheapest way to heat that space.

Cherrycola

Thats what i was going to do, but does the gas boiler not heat up a certain amount of water anyway, regardless of how many rads are on? Or does it shut off after it heats say one rad?

I do have a few rads off in the house anyway, in spare rooms and hallways, but i wondered if it really makes any difference to the gas usage, as the gas is still on heating the rest of the rads anyway, does that make sense?
Can you tell im clueless about gas heating/usage?


I have heard a few people say that gas fires just eat gas anyway, so are best left off, whats the point of them really, when they cost more to run than an open fire.
Id love to know what the usage stats are for things like that.

Micky Dolenz

The less rads that are on a system = less water to heat. So if you have 10 rads and turn off 5, this means that the boiler has far less water to heat so will run for a shorter time to get to temperature.