Making my heating more efficient

[cg360]

Hi,
I have a 3-bed bungalow with LPG-fired heating, a 20-year old system with hot water tank. It works well, but I feel it could be more efficient, and the price of LPG is pretty painful. The house has approx 20cm of loft insulation and it's timber-framed. The wood-framed double glazing is 20 years old.
There are 8 rads in the house, at the moment 7 have TRV's fitted (bathroom is the one without), and the h/w tank has a foamy(?) type yellow insulation layer on it.
My question is really about making the system work efficiently. Having a wife who believes that opening a TRV makes the house heat up quicker is one problem, but not one which can be solved by replacement!
My queries are:
1. Will another hot water tank jacket help much?
2. How do I know when my radiator TRV's have closed? If I knew, I could set the temperature accurately in each room confidently and then work on educating the missus.
3. Should I be running a room stat? There is none at present.
4. Finally, is it worth replacing the boiler before failure? It's been perfectly reliable thus far, but is getting on a bit now.
Many thanks for any help you can offer.
Craig

 

[muggles]

1. If you have bonded foam insulation already then probably not, but making sure all the pipes are insulated with the thickest lagging you can get on there will make a difference at little expense.

2. You won't really but the manufacturers will be able to give guidance on what temperature each setting should produce. They'll probably also be able to provide you with anti-tamper devices so you can lock them on one setting

3. A room stat would be a good addition, yes

4. No, keep what you have, the outlay of buying a new one will not be recouped by the efficiency savings on gas over the old one

 

[D_Hailsham]

Having a wife who believes that opening a TRV makes the house heat up quicker is one problem, but not one which can be solved by replacement!

Depends on what (or who) you replace!

Will another hot water tank jacket help much?

If your thinking of a loose jacket, then NO; but if you replace the cylinder with a modern one with much thicker insulation (50mm), you will notice a difference

How do I know when my radiator TRV's have closed? If I knew, I could set the temperature accurately in each room confidently and then work on educating the missus.

A TRV does not close, it just shuts down a little to maintain the correct flow. It is like a car accelerator: you press it to the floor to accelerate up to speed and then lift your foot so the engine is producing just enough power to maintain the required speed. The TRV starts fully open and then closes down a bit when the required temperature is reached.

Should I be running a room stat? There is none at present.

YES! That's probably the most important thing to do. Without a room stat, the boiler will continue to run until the boiler stat turns it off, even if all rooms are up to temperature. The room stat should normally be placed in an area where the rad does not have a TRV. In your case it would be sufficient to set the TRV in the room to Max.

Is it worth replacing the boiler before failure? It's been perfectly reliable thus far, but is getting on a bit now.

That's always a difficult question.

Modern boiler do not appear to last as long as older ones, so that is a good reason for keeping the existing boiler. On the other hand, modern boilers are much more efficient, so your fuel bills will be lower, which isn't a bad thing, the way prices are moving.

It's a bit like changing your car - when is the "right" time to do it? The longer you leave it, the more you will spend on servicing, tyres etc and the less you will get for your old one. But the new car will cost less to run.

 

[cg360]

Many thanks for the replies. I will fit a room stat and embark on a spouse education programme.
I did doubt the cost benefit of changing the boiler. It's reliable and showing no siogn of breaking down at all.
Craig

 

[dcawkwell]

Installing a cheap room thermostat is certainly going to save on the bills.

Swap to an air source heat pump as I am in the process of doing.
I am on LPG too and it's price is rocketing.
You can keep the old boiler (not the wife) as a booster in very cold weather.