How long should it take to warm up your house?

midas · 1 Jan 2010

Maybe this question is unanswerable given all the variables involved but let's say you've got the correct number and size of rads and the proper boiler rating for your house and reasonably good insulation etc etc.

If I set my overnight temperature 5 degress below my daytime temperature
(coming on at 6:30 am in the winter) how long *roughly* would you expect it to take to take to warm up your house?

Homesafe · 1 Jan 2010

rough estimate, but about 15-20 mins.

D_Hailsham · 1 Jan 2010

Obviously you are not satisfied with the warm up time in your house or you would not be asking the question. So how long is it taking?

Without all the relevant facts about the house, any rough guess is in the "how long is a piece of string" league.

You say that the night temp is 5°C below daytime, but does the heating ever come on in the night?

We have the night time temperature set to 5°C and the temperature never drops more than 3°C at the most. Last night we kept the heating on until 0030 at 21°C. An hour later it was still over 20°C.

midas · 1 Jan 2010

D_Hailsham said:
Obviously you are not satisfied with the warm up time in your house or you would not be asking the question. So how long is it taking?

Without all the relevant facts about the house, any rough guess is in the "how long is a piece of string" league.

You say that the night temp is 5°C below daytime, but does the heating ever come on in the night?

We have the night time temperature set to 5°C and the temperature never drops more than 3°C at the most. Last night we kept the heating on until 0030 at 21°C. An hour later it was still over 20°C.

Ok it's a largeish 5 bed house. I'd say 2/3 of it is 200 years old built from stone so obviously no cavity insulation etc. the Other 3rd is new built with insulation etc.
I've got max loft insulation on all the house and it's all double glazed.
The house gets heated to 21 degrees until 10

m and comes on again at 6:30 by which time in the currect climate it's dropped usually to 16 degrees. I set the night temp to 14 degrees and it never comes on. It takes about 4 hours to get back up to temperature.

So I'm guessing that's not normal right? The rads take I'd say 30 minutes to get hot (too hot to touch) and I don't have any problems with any of the rads being cold top or bottom.

Maybe my house does need extra rads?

Any advice appreciated.

Nige F · 1 Jan 2010

your heating needs to be on constant and switched to a lower setting via roomstat @ night

midas · 1 Jan 2010

Nige F said:
your heating needs to be on constant and switched to a lower setting via roomstat @ night

Sorry if I'm being thick but I don't understand what you mean.
The boiler is set to continuous and both my upstairs and downstairs wall stats

are set to 14 degrees in which case they the boiler never fires up at night.

electronicsuk · 1 Jan 2010

If the rads are all getting hot and it's still taking the house four hours to warm up, clearly the radiators must be inadequately sized. It seems safe to assume the boiler has a high enough outputs for the rads as currently fitted, otherwise they wouldn't be getting "too hot to touch".

Of course, if you compare the costs of fitting larger/more rads and possibly a larger boiler, it may simply be more cost effective to maintain the temperature of the building to a higher level overnight. That or set your heating to come on four hours earlier than anticipated.

Homesafe · 1 Jan 2010

midas said:
[ I set the night temp to 14 degrees and it never comes on. It takes about 4 hours to get back up to temperature.

So I'm guessing that's not normal right? The rads take I'd say 30 minutes to get hot (too hot to touch) and I don't have any problems with any of the rads being cold top or bottom.

Maybe my house does need extra rads?

Any advice appreciated.

It is normal for it to not fire if you set thermostat's at 14 and temp. is only cming down to 16c.

basically you are letting the house get too cold and when the heating tries to warm the fabric of your house it takes up to 4 hrs as you say.

in my opinion ,I would say dont let the house get too cold ie. keep upstair's sta at about 18 and downstair's at about 16/17c timed to come on in morning if possible.

the heating like a car when warm will not consume as much fuel as when started from cold ,, if you can understand that logic

.

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How long should it take to warm up your house?

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