Central heating, lower temp at night or leave it?

Dutch Guy

Dutch Guy

Dutch Guy

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I heard mixed reports on this so maybe someone knows the definate answer.

During the day the temperature is set to 22C and from 23:00 to 06:30 the temp is lowered to 17C
But I had two people saying it costs more gas to heat the house up from 17C to 22C in the morning than it would have cost to leave the temp at 22C :confused:

I know the heating is working hard in the morning to get the house to 22C but I doubt it will use more gas than to leave the temp at 22C all night, am I right?
 
Its right in a way.

If your house is well insulated its better to keep the house warm constantly rather than letting it cool and then heating it up. Do you run your heating continuosly or do you run programmed times?

If your heating is on throughout the day then 7 1/2 hours off at night is fine, there's no need for it to be on anyway.

If you're only in the house morning and night then maybe and hour or so in the day will keep the temp up and save you money.

Do you know what temp your house gets down to at night? You may find it dosen't drop down the 18c
 
Timer is cheaper unless you have a super efficient thermal house with no draughts.

The transfer of heat from our homes is a function of the driving force between the two bodies. To keep it simple let's say for arguments say that during the colder months the ambient outdoor temperature is a 6C. For the purpose of a house we can assume everything to be at uniform temperature as would be the case at steady state. The driving force for temperature change is the difference between the two bodies. The higher the difference the higher the rate of transfer.

Based on this a home at a constant 18C loses more energy to a 6C surrounding (outdoor temperature) than a home that is say 18C for 2hrs on the morining and perhaps 4hrs on an evening. During the times between the temperature of the home is either reducing or increasing based on the timer settings. At these times the loss of heat from the home is less than would be the case for a home at constant high temperature, therefore you save money on your fuel bill.

If you really want to save money then spend your efforts on reducing heat loss from your home as this directly reduces heat loss (waste) from your home.
 
Danm54 said:
Its right in a way.

If your house is well insulated its better to keep the house warm constantly rather than letting it cool and then heating it up. Do you run your heating continuosly or do you run programmed times?

If your heating is on throughout the day then 7 1/2 hours off at night is fine, there's no need for it to be on anyway.

If you're only in the house morning and night then maybe and hour or so in the day will keep the temp up and save you money.

Do you know what temp your house gets down to at night? You may find it dosen't drop down the 18c
Click to expand...
Our house is from 1937 and not insulated well (not at all really)
During the day my girlfriend is at home with our 7 year old when he is home from school and our 4 month baby so during the day the temp stays at ~22C

The temp at night is set to 17C and I can hear the central heating come on at night once or twice as the temp drops below 17C
 
Mine is on all the time just now with the thermostat simply altering temperatures throughout the day/night. So it clicks on and off when it feels like it. Our bills are actually cheaper now than when we had it on a timer last year, it's also as if it's just topping up the temperature.

Old building though, 150+ year old so that might be partly the reason.
 
22? Mad man. You need to wear more clothes and get that turned down quick. (unless you're rich)

Re. Baby... they can wear clothes / blankets as well you know.
 
Turn it off all together it will be cheaper or if the misses insists roll it down to 12 degrees or so, unless you have a small ultra insulated dwelling.
 
Not related but I feel the need to share, we ran out of oil (no GCH around here in the sticks) yesterday so our central heating no longer works. Last check of the temp was 10.7 degrees. How I long for 22...:(
 
( |-| |2 ][ $;15687906 said:
22? Mad man. You need to wear more clothes and get that turned down quick. (unless you're rich)

Re. Baby... they can wear clothes / blankets as well you know.
Click to expand...
It's actually 21.6C and the temp sensor is propably off, we had another temperature sensor next to the thermosthat that measures 21.0C when the actual thermostat meaasures 21.5C so it's not really 22C

As for the temp at night, it's not the baby that is complaing but the girlfriend that gets cold feet walking on the cold wood floor and can't tell me that in the morning but she has to wake me up to tell me that at 03:00 :(
 
In the winter, got mine running at 18c in the day and 20c first thing in the morning and just before bed, at night it's down to frost watch (5c). Seems to work OK, we are rarely cold (family of four) and bills are not too crazy. We do like to wear an extra layer in the winter though, why would anyone walk around in a T-shirt and boxer shorts in this weather and then turn the heating up to 25c and feel the need to complain when they get a huge bill? crazy.
 
Depending on the age of your property and where exactly you are, it may well be worth leaving the heating on all night at the moment.

Freezing temperatures cause a lot of pipe bursts, and it's a nightmare to fix after water damage gets in.
 
Dutch Guy said:
The temp at night is set to 17C and I can hear the central heating come on at night once or twice as the temp drops below 17C
Click to expand...

The basic way of checking would be to monitor how long the heating comes on overnight to keep the temp at the constant 22oC i.e. adding up all the 20 mins here and 10 mins there.

Then do the same with the temp set to 17oC and add on the time the boiler is on to get it from 17oC to 22oC in the morning.

Whichever is less is the cheapest seeing as a boiler is just "full on" or "full off"
 
Its easy to check, just do one night as you are and then one night at 17 and monitor your units. We use 17 during the day and night and 20 in the evenings. We were told to keep it at 20 all the time as it was cheaper. We got a huge bill, monitored our usage and our way was the cheaper.

Ours is a new insulated house with no draughts at all.
 
( |-| |2 ][ $;15687906 said:
22? Mad man. You need to wear more clothes and get that turned down quick. (unless you're rich)

Re. Baby... they can wear clothes / blankets as well you know.
Click to expand...

If I have it below 22 my fingers freeze when I'm on the PC.
 
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