House warming.

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Sorry, but no, its not an invite to a party. :D

For the gas men on here;

Is it cheaper, in the log run, to leave you heating on 24/7 and just turn the thermostat down when you go to bed?

Or is it cheaper to have it coming on at timed intervals?

The way I see it, it seems to take much longer, and therefore use more gas, to heat it up from cold than to keep it at a steady temperature.

Your comments will be greatly appreciated.
 
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Its more efficient to leave it off and wear a wooly jumper.
I'm wearing an army issue one as I write this.
Its about 2 degrees outside and I'm toasting. Heating off. :mrgreen:

People seem to have this notion that they should be able to wear a T shirt in the home in mid winter and have a God given right to cheap gas to make that happen.
 
Wearing a woolly jumper ( and thermal leggings ) saves the most money.

In my opinion the room(s) that are being used should be heated to a comfortable temperature when occupied and other rooms kept at a fall back temperature until they are occupied.

But that involves a complex control system and the savings in gas cost may not pay back the cost of the control system.

Also the construction and layout out of the house will affect the decision.
 
How long is a piece of string.

It will always be cheaper to use less heating, but if you want to maintain a certain temperature it is possible that the difference won't be significant.

Depends on the building fabric, method of heating, your target temperature, and how long you need the heating on for.

If it is an old heavy mass construction, then leaving the heating on a low setting 24/7 can make more sense. Dense materials will have a high thermal mass, and if the heating is left off during most of the day then people will tend to ramp up the heating when home to try and warm the place up, most of that heat will then just go into the fabric to be released after you have gone to bed (wasted). You *might* be able to save money by using economy 7 rates on leccy rather than gas to heat the fabric overnight, for it to be released later, and top up with gas heating as required in the day.

If you have an old mass construction house, with very poor insulation, then forget about any notion of efficiency or cheap heating, unless you are lucky enough to have a free source of wood.

Most modern homes are made from lightweight blocks and some timber framing, so they have very little if any significant thermal mass other than maybe a concrete floor, with these type of houses it is best to turn it on as you need it.
 
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Agreed, you don't feel the cold when you are p****d all the time.

Unfortunately I left for the Chilterns when I was 7, one year before the mandatory drinking age. Anyway although a flippant comment, it is a truism that you do become more tolerant of "cold" personally I suffer in temperatures over the mid 20's.
Too hot for me.. House heated to about 16/17 is fine for me, but deffo no heating in the bedroom.
 
OK, let me be more specific:

The house costs about 3 units of gas to heat for 6 hours a day, with the heating coming on at 3pm and going off at 9pm. The thermostat is set at 18c.

The house doesn't really get warm until about an hour after it is switched on at 3pm and cools off by 11pm.

Is it cheaper to run the heating 24/7 BUT set the thermostat to 15c for all but 6hours and turn the thermostat up to 18c at 3pm and down to 15c at 9pm.

Please don't respond about putting on extra jumpers etc - the house is not warm enough to wander around in just a t-shirt and comments like that are not actually answering what was, originally, a technical question about heat expansion etc, not an invitation to treat me like a 10 year old.
 
OK, let me be more specific:

The house costs about 3 units of gas to heat for 6 hours a day, with the heating coming on at 3pm and going off at 9pm. The thermostat is set at 18c.

The house doesn't really get warm until about an hour after it is switched on at 3pm and cools off by 11pm.

Is it cheaper to run the heating 24/7 BUT set the thermostat to 15c for all but 6hours and turn the thermostat up to 18c at 3pm and down to 15c at 9pm.

Please don't respond about putting on extra jumpers etc - the house is not warm enough to wander around in just a t-shirt and comments like that are not actually answering what was, originally, a technical question about heat expansion etc, not an invitation to treat me like a 10 year old.

Well to answer specifically the advise from BG is that it is cheaper to have the heating timed... but I do agree though that may not be true for every house.

I guess the emphatic way to determine what is cheaper in your house is to experiment.
 
Thanks Ed.

Do you have a link to follow as the info I find on the net is so conflicting. There is so much confusion regarding cost when you take into account thermal loss and percentage per degree heated over a certain amount. i.e. it is cheaper to heat water to a certain temperature than it is to heat it above a certain temperature. Does this also affect boilers heating water from 15c (the ambient temperature if heating is left on all the time) to 18c (for the 6 hour boost)?

Thought that by writing on here I would actually get a sensible answer without the sarcasm from certain others.
 
with the heating coming on at 3pm and going off at 9pm. The thermostat is set at 18c.

The house doesn't really get warm until about an hour after it is switched on at 3pm and cools off by 11pm.

I suspect you have a house with medium thermal mass and appalling levels of insulation, typical of brick Victorian houses for example. If this is correct, then you are on a hiding to nothing, any tweaks you make will result in probably no more than a 10% difference (guestimate), you simply have to much heat loss combined with medium thermal mass.

Thermal mass will suck up the heat (which is why it takes time to warm up). Medium thermal mass will still slow down heating response times, but without decent wall insulation this stored heat will go outwards as much as back into the property. Really thick dense walls will act as both thermal mass and insulation (not very efficiently, but its something).



If you are serious about saving on heating, you'll have to invest in wall insulation. Ideally you would insulate render the proper to retain the thermal mass, but this is expensive, so insulated plasterboard is what most people will do. If you do this then you remove the thermal mass, and so heat when necessary (as warm up times will be rapid without thermal mass and good insulation).
 
Well this is a link from uswitch

http://www.uswitch.com/energy-saving/guides/heating-on-all-the-time/

But I am sure the one I saw the other day was from BG.

I would strongly suggest the dynamics of house heating depend on insulation and construction type.

To perhaps highlight this my first house was a cottage built some time in the 17th century, it was suicide to let that place get cold as it would take the boiler a full day of continuous output to heat it back up (usually combined with water pouring out of the walls)

Subsequently I have lived in modern well insulated properties that simply don't have the same issues at all.

So unfortunately as your research has probably concluded it's not a black and white question.
 
Thanks guys.

The house was built around 1985 and is brick cavity construction. As its a rented property we are not sure if it has cavity insulation, so rendering/thermal board lining is out of the question. It also has uPVC double glazing which seems to be quite recent as the woodgrain finish outside hasn't faded the way some do over time. I spent about two hours before checking for draughts and found a gap at the top of the patio door and coming from under the gas fire. The gap around the windows is now filled with flexible mastic and the gas fire, (which has been condemned and isolated from the supply), has a flue which goes through the wall and terminates at a louvre grill outside. I simply wrapped a number of layers of cling-film around this grill and the difference is amazing! No cold draught around our feet any more! :D

We will be trying the experiment in Ed's link and comparing costs of timed switching for one week and constant on for a week.

Once again, thanks guys and will let you know the results in about a fortnight, (assuming weather is reasonably similar over the two weeks).
 
Normally I use timed heating. One year I tried leaving it on and just turning the stat down before bed and back up in the morning. It used considerably more gas than normal so I won't be repeating it. House has solid brick walls, mostly double glazed and otherwise well insulated and draught proofed.
 
Thanks Conny, because you have reminded me......

We too have a (not used) gas fire, with flue, and the draught was noticeable in winter.
So, I loosely scrunched up a few sheets of newspaper, and stuffed them up the flue. No more draughts :)
That was about four years ago - must check up on the situation...........
 
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