Switching off Radiators

Filmer Paradise

Quick question for yis.

The Father in Law is a great man for switching off radiators in rooms that are not being used. Says it saves on his energy bill.

Makes sense to me.

I have a brother in law who has some experiance in Plumbing. He says this is a complete waste of time. It makes no difference whatsoever.

So, which one's right & why?

Water John

FIL is correct. He is manually zoning the house.
A good example is, this time of year you might occasionally need a bit of heat in the living room in the evening. Turning off all bedroom rads means your heating one or two rooms and not the whole house.

the_pen_turner

waste of time. all he is doing is createing cold rooms that are going to pull the heat from other rooms.
he will save on fuel but will have a much colder and draughty house

Filmer Paradise

Water John wrote: »

FIL is correct. He is manually zoning the house.
A good example is, this time of year you might occasionally need a bit of heat in the living room in the evening. Turning off all bedroom rads means your heating one or two rooms and not the whole house.

I get that.

Does this make any difference to the amount of time the boiler is on?

TheChizler

the_pen_turner wrote: »

waste of time. all he is doing is createing cold rooms that are going to pull the heat from other rooms.
he will save on fuel but will have a much colder and draughty house

If you heat them all you're doing is creating warm rooms for no reason other for the heat to be 'pulled' through the outside walls. You're still overall saving by not heating them.

enfant terrible

Our boiler heats the water for the shower too.

Is it OK to turn off all the rads in the summer and have the boiler just head the hot water cylinder?

TheChizler

enfant terrible wrote: »

Our boiler heats the water for the shower too.

Is it OK to turn off all the rads in the summer and have the boiler just head the hot water cylinder?

No bother. Surely there's an isolation valve for the central heating rather than turning off every single rad.

Water John

Are some here suggesting that the whole zoning of heating in a house, especially an older one is a waste of time?

the_pen_turner

TheChizler wrote: »

If you heat them all you're doing is creating warm rooms for no reason other for the heat to be 'pulled' through the outside walls. You're still overall saving by not heating them.

i agree you will use less fuel but your house will be colder

enfant terrible

TheChizler wrote: »

No bother. Surely there's an isolation valve for the central heating rather than turning off every single rad.

Not sure what would it look like? would it be in hot press?

Would that then just heat cylinder and no rads?

TheChizler

enfant terrible wrote: »

Not sure what would it look like? would it be in hot press?

Would that then just heat cylinder and no rads?

Could be a red lever near the cylinder but unless you're sure I wouldn't go at anything.

HeidiHeidi

enfant terrible wrote: »

Not sure what would it look like? would it be in hot press?

Would that then just heat cylinder and no rads?

Until recently I had no way of isolating the rads from the system - during the summer I just had to turn off all the rads and then turn them on again next autumn.

So it's possible you have the same set-up. Never did any harm having all the rads off and the boiler just heating the water (that I know of!)

I recently got two zones fitted as part of getting a Nest installed - one for the rads and one for the hot water - and it's brilliant.