Should I leave the heating on all the time ?

[swayzak]

hi

This morning, my boiler seemed to working really "hard" initially e.g bit noiser than usual. I could hear it vibrating through the bathroom ceiling (it is just above this). After the heating got going it has returned to it's normal quiet self.

It's a Potterton 50L Suprima (with replaced PCB).

Still got my air problem btw ( //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1093633#1093633 )

All my tanks / boiler are in the attic, and this has 9 EasyVents for the loft insulation. Therefore in this weather it is bloody cold up there !!

I'm not sure if the noise this morning was related to the boiler trying to heat almost freezing water, but possibly ?

Should I leave the heating on all the time in this weather, and just use the thermostat to control how much it is firing up ?

e.g. at night, turn it down to 10-12 degrees ?

Actually, this would mean the house wouldn't be nice and toasty for when I dip a toe outside the duvet though ... so maybe it's a stupid idea.

Or maybe it was related to the air problem (which hasn't improved over a week so I'm calling the plumbers back out tomorrow !).


swayzak

 

[fitz1]

20-21 in the day. 15-17 night.you then are not using mega energy to warm the house.think of your house like a kettle.once a full kettle is boiled and you let it go cold you are using a lot of energy to reheat, but if you tuned it on every minute or so it would only use a very small amount of energy to bring it back to boiling.set my mates house up like this and he says its cheaper to run than on in a morn and then on on a night.

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

Facts:- The hotter something is the more heat it loses
A boiler that is turned off uses no gas
A kettle that is turned off uses no electricity
The heat energy required to raise water’s temperature 1ºC is 4186 joules per litre


Fiction

20-21 in the day. 15-17 night.you then are not using mega energy to warm the house.think of your house like a kettle.once a full kettle is boiled and you let it go cold you are using a lot of energy to reheat, but if you tuned it on every minute or so it would only use a very small amount of energy to bring it back to boiling.set my mates house up like this and he says its cheaper to run than on in a morn and then on on a night.

The real issue is you need properly fitted insulation around your plumbing in the loft.

 

[Paul Barker]

i have to set my off period temp to 15 and my on period sometimes achieves 18. It's that time of year when a large victorian house built for rich west yorkshire industrialists with servants to holliday in cannot be heated.

But i am sitting here now at 17.3 degrees with my long johns string vest t shirt and wooly jomper and I am roasting. Furthermore when I don my coat and go outside where it is 0 degrees I am also comfortable. the only time I get uncomfortable is when I go into a shop or into a person's house that can achieve 20. Then I start to sweat the moisture of which cools me when i go outside.

I believe strongly in aclimatising. The modern way of heating a house in the winter to summer temperatures is not healthy.

 

[swayzak]

thanks all - I'll leave it off at night then

the pipes / tanks are pretty well insulated (mostly done by MarkGroup as part of insulation as they knew EasyVents were needed)

could the v cold water be a reason for the boiler sounding as though it's working harder initially ?

 

[JohnD]

But i am sitting here now at 17.3 degrees with my long johns string vest t shirt and wooly jomper and I am roasting. Furthermore when I don my coat and go outside...

I really think you should consider investing in a pair of trousers.