House vacant for 6 days over winter - heating off?

ArmyofHarmony

ArmyofHarmony

ArmyofHarmony

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Just returning to my London house after Xmas with the parents. Housemate has beaten me home and is moaning I left the heating, ON TIMER when I left the house last weekend.

Surely nobody sane completely turns heating off for long period of time over winter? Frozen pipes, damp and the like...

Housemate then said I should have left timer to one hour a day Max. Surely the cost of heating the house from minus temp to room temp for only an hour a day would be as bad, if not worse than having the heating on longer and retaining heat?

I'm kind of shocked at the student level pikeyism in my house considering I live with bankers
 
you're not trying to retain heat for comfort, simply to ensure that the pipes don't freeze. 30 minutes twice per day should be fine and typically overnight when it's colder. I doubt you are down any more than £20 between you.
 
My heating is switched on manually by me, and only if I'm home. Although as my heating is electric, then I'm probably on a different situation to those of you with central heating, as I have no pipes. Well there are on the boiler, but that's on a timer for just the hot water.
 
I've been away from home for a few days. I just left the heating on the normal timer and dropped the temp to 17c to keep it reasonable.
 
It would make more sense (both common and financial) to just turn the heating down rather than off completely.

Depending on the size of the house it'll probably take quite a while to re-heat the house from being off/cold for 6 days, than it would to just keep topping it up and ticking over.

Your housemate is a fool /thread.
 
I set mine to 16c when I am leaving for any length of time. Anything lower and you risk all sorts of problems including damp etc... Note this is for a house.

If you live in a flat with people and heating below you or either side then that is another matter.
 
Don't turn it off, everything in your house stores heat, when you turn it off it will lose the heat and you will come back to a freezing cold house, and worse yet everything in it will be cold and take ages to warm back up.
 
I think if you're away for a few days to a week it's going to cost near enough the same to let the house cool right down than heat it back up from sub-10°C, plus as mentioned you get risks of damp and frozen pipes.
 
I suppose one other question is do you own or rent? As if you rent you will find there is probably a clause in your tenancy agreement that states heating must be used at a low setting while away from the house for a prolonged period
 
I don't have central heating
have been in this house for 48 years and its never had a burst or frozen pipe and that was when we had bad winters here.
I have never seen the point of heating hall n stairs etc when your only using them to get from one room to another, waste of money
 
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