Heating help. Please

tunner

Lads, I know this has been asked before but not answered but I really need help
As it's costing me alot of money and I'm very tight for cash.

We have gas central heating, and it heats water and rads. we also have a gas fire in living room but don't use. I might get a chimney balloon for that this week.

What is the most efficient way to run your heating when at home all day? Should you just fire it up when you feel the chill which is what we do but board Gais said not to.
Or leave it to run on constant? I don't see the difference between the two really.

There are thermostats on the rads which I have set upstairs to heat rooms to 20 degrees and downstairs to 21 and the boiler turned down to half.

Maybe there is a website someone can direct me to.. for some hints and tips

Many thanks lads any help appreciated. House is relatively well insulated and is about 7-8 years old

MrThrifty

Here starts the debate! If at home all day, then that simplifies things a bit. Although there's still gonna be arguments about whether the bedrooms should only be heated in morning and night, or all day. That depends on how well/poorly insulated the rooms are and so how slowly/quickly they lose heat. And for living areas, ideally if you have a suitable boiler you can buy clever thermostats that maximise efficiency but otherwise in theory you want to minimise the boiler control temperature (turning down in winter but up in summer)... You also probably want to minimise the current thermostat switching differential temperature as much as practically possible, so maybe something like 1 deg switching differential and no more I'd guess...

Others prob know better about this whole subject...

Curly Judge

The simplest solution if you want to save money is to set it for an hour in the morning and a few hours in the evening.
Home all day?
Whatever happened to an extra jumper and a pair of long johns?

tunner

Thanks thrifty. I was wondering if I should leave it on constant on low or keep boosting it when it gets cold? 2 babies and toddler and their poor hands and nose are cold.

tunner

Curly Judge wrote: »

The simplest solution if you want to save money is to set it for an hour in the morning and a few hours in the evening.
Home all day?
Whatever happened to an extra jumper and a pair of long johns?

Curly judge I am looking for constructive suggestions, not a query as to why one would be home all day and certainly not a suggestion to wear long johns. I'm hardly sitting about in a tshirt!

Carlow52

tunner wrote: »

2 babies and toddler and their poor hands and noses are cold.

this is different, keep one or 2 rooms at a higher temp and keep them in there.
for adults layered clothing is the best way, however keep it abot 16 or better to avoid any damp issues

MrThrifty

Carlow52 wrote: »

this is different, keep one or 2 rooms at a higher temp and keep them in there.
for adults layered clothing is the best way, however keep it abot 16 or better to avoid any damp issues

+1 if this is feasible. Good practical answer. You should be able to control individual rads with the knob usually on the right hand side...

Curly Judge

tunner wrote: »

Curly judge I am looking for constructive suggestions, not a query as to why one would be home all day and certainly not a suggestion to wear long johns. I'm hardly sitting about in a tshirt!

Okay, Okay!
No need to jump down my neck.
You never mentioned your toddlers in your opening post.
For all I knew you could have been an unemployed Eskimo.

MicktheMan

MrThrifty wrote: »

Here starts the debate!

It is virtually impossible to give an accurate answer as it depends on so many variables :
1. What type of structure, thermal mass available for heat storage
2. No only insulation levels but also airtightness
3. Heating system efficiency including distribution system and controls
4. User behaviour

To illustrate the above, I changed the way we ran our heating last winter and monitored the firing times of our boiler.
House type: mid 70's 200m2 bungalow, cavity wall (pumped), high thermal mass.
Insulation levels: Floor - non; walls pumped but significant tb's; ceiling not great (200mm fibre).
Airtightness: m3/hr/m2 - mvhr system for ventilation
Heating system: standard oil, rads (no trv's) zoned, digital time/temp stats.

We used to turn on our ch for an hour or two in the morning and 5-6 hours in the evening with our dhw on for an hour in the morning only. When we did this the temperature of the house used to fall to 14/15 degC between heating cycles during depths of winter.

We changed this to running our ch 24/7 with an internal setpoint of 20 degC from 6am to 11pm and 19 degC from 11pm to 6am. As a result we had a very comfortable house all the time last winter.
Having monitored the oil burner firing times over this period, it turns out that, on average, the burner was on less that 10 minutes per hour over the period (i.e. less that 4 hours per day). And this included all our DHW needs.
When compared to oil consumption (i.e. cost) of how we used to run our system, it turns out that by running 24/7 and keeping the house always warm it didn't use any more oil. Result:).

Obviously, not all houses will behave like this, and this is why there is always a debate on the subject. The best way to know is to actually monitor fuel use running different ways but bear in mind that you need to test over a decent period of time. For instance, because the house was kept warm all the time, it was dryer (structure and air) and as a result it was then easier to keep warm.

MrThrifty

Interesting stuff, although bear in mind that outside conditions are key and no 2 winters are the same... But... How did you monitor your boiler? Using a gadget or... yourself? Just curious, would be great to be able to monitor oil usage accurately and cheaply...

MicktheMan

MrThrifty wrote: »

Interesting stuff, although bear in mind that outside conditions are key and no 2 winters are the same... But... How did you monitor your boiler? Using a gadget or... yourself? Just curious, would be great to be able to monitor oil usage accurately and cheaply...[/QUOTE

Agree with you regarding different winter conditions but this regime / monitoring was done last winter including the extreme snow and ice in November and December.

I installed an hour counter on the burner power and took regular readings.

cavan4sam

what is a one hour counter ? i'm curious bout this issue too as i only have heat on about 3 hours a day mid week ie. 6-7 am 5-6 pm and 10-11 pm gets a bit chilly at times open fire in living room used every evening
obviously at weekends heating used more but only in half hour intervals , is this practical or should it be 1-2 hr intervals

MicktheMan

cavan4sam wrote: »

what is a one hour counter ? i'm curious bout this issue too as i only have heat on about 3 hours a day mid week ie. 6-7 am 5-6 pm and 10-11 pm gets a bit chilly at times open fire in living room used every evening
obviously at weekends heating used more but only in half hour intervals , is this practical or should it be 1-2 hr intervals

An hour counter or hour meter is basically a counter/meter which records the cumulative time a circuit is energised. I have it connected to my burner, so when my control system powers the burner, the hour counter also powers up. Very simple really, think I paid 10 yoyo's in electrical wholesaler.

As to how best to run your own heating depends on a lot of things listed in an earlier post.

cavan4sam

MicktheMan wrote: »

An hour counter or hour meter is basically a counter/meter which records the cumulative time a circuit is energised. I have it connected to my burner, so when my control system powers the burner, the hour counter also powers up. Very simple really, think I paid 10 yoyo's in electrical wholesaler.

As to how best to run your own heating depends on a lot of things listed in an earlier post.

cheers mick are they hard to fit or is it a job for a sparks ?

refco

good to see this question coming up it been something ive been changing over and over without much monitering im heating the house off wood pellet boiler neither here nor there regardless of fuel id imagine results should be the same as regards running cost my best result to date was constant running of the boiler and rads and controll flow temp from boiler at 40 degrees i will run at this temperature for another week or so and then i intend to take a chance at dropping supply temp to 36 degrees and see how it goes im not saving a huge amount on fuel(was filling pellet hopper every five days now have it that in filling hopper every7 or 8 or sometimes im getting 9 days) compared to when i was running heating with supply at 55 degrees for two hours in morning and an hour around lunch time and two to three hours in evening but all rooms in the house are constantly at a comfortable 19 to 21 degrees now my next move is to fit trvs on all rads hopefully more savings to be made

MicktheMan

cavan4sam wrote: »

cheers mick are they hard to fit or is it a job for a sparks ?

If you can wire a plug you should be able to do it yourself. Take usual precautions of isolating power etc.

MicktheMan

refco wrote: »

good to see this question coming up it been something ive been changing over and over without much monitering im heating the house off wood pellet boiler neither here nor there regardless of fuel id imagine results should be the same as regards running cost my best result to date was constant running of the boiler and rads and controll flow temp from boiler at 40 degrees i will run at this temperature for another week or so and then i intend to take a chance at dropping supply temp to 36 degrees and see how it goes im not saving a huge amount on fuel(was filling pellet hopper every five days now have it that in filling hopper every7 or 8 or sometimes im getting 9 days) compared to when i was running heating with supply at 55 degrees for two hours in morning and an hour around lunch time and two to three hours in evening but all rooms in the house are constantly at a comfortable 19 to 21 degrees now my next move is to fit trvs on all rads hopefully more savings to be made

Me head's wrecked:(. Any chance of punctuation?