Combating energy prices

I'm in the very fortunate position where my solar is keeping my bills down so I've left the heating on but with the smart TRVs only certain rooms are heating. If I'm home I'll put the fire on which takes the edge off and means the heating doesn't need to be on as long despite the fire being too small to heat the whole house it makes a difference. When I'm not the heating turns off via geolocation so that saves money. However even with the heating on we're not using a huge amount of gas surprisingly I guess that's the joy of modern boilers?

Since I'm in credit I've dropped the DD to £50 for the next couple of months.
 
Ok this is weird. I've just received a huge credit into my octopus account. I'm now over £1k in credit! I've dropped them an email as I'm not sure what's going on....

Anyone ever had this?
 
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Hi folks. Quick question which is probably as good in here as setting up a new thread.

I've just moved into a new place. My heating is set to be very low during the day, as I'm usually out and about when not working from home. However, I work from home 2-3 days a week, and obviously like to be a reasonable temperature while doing so, but only really need one room to be warm when that's the case.

Is it cheaper to switch my (gas, combi boiler) central heating on from time to time through the day, or to buy and use an electric oil radiator to heat only the room in question?

I'm fortunate in that I'm not vastly worried about money, so if there's only a few £ a month in it I won't bother buying the oil radiator, but if there's a significant saving to be made then obviously it's worthwhile. Thanks!
 
manic111 said:
Hi folks. Quick question which is probably as good in here as setting up a new thread.

I've just moved into a new place. My heating is set to be very low during the day, as I'm usually out and about when not working from home. However, I work from home 2-3 days a week, and obviously like to be a reasonable temperature while doing so, but only really need one room to be warm when that's the case.

Is it cheaper to switch my (gas, combi boiler) central heating on from time to time through the day, or to buy and use an electric oil radiator to heat only the room in question?

I'm fortunate in that I'm not vastly worried about money, so if there's only a few £ a month in it I won't bother buying the oil radiator, but if there's a significant saving to be made then obviously it's worthwhile. Thanks!
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manic111 said:
Hi folks. Quick question which is probably as good in here as setting up a new thread.

I've just moved into a new place. My heating is set to be very low during the day, as I'm usually out and about when not working from home. However, I work from home 2-3 days a week, and obviously like to be a reasonable temperature while doing so, but only really need one room to be warm when that's the case.

Is it cheaper to switch my (gas, combi boiler) central heating on from time to time through the day, or to buy and use an electric oil radiator to heat only the room in question?

I'm fortunate in that I'm not vastly worried about money, so if there's only a few £ a month in it I won't bother buying the oil radiator, but if there's a significant saving to be made then obviously it's worthwhile. Thanks!
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Where is the thermostat? Is it in that room? If not I'd consider using a separate heater, closing the door and leaving the house thermostat lower.

Or, as the post above says: Heat the person not the home.
 
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I keep my house at 17c. However it's too cold for me sitting at a PC typing. Nothing worse than trying to type with cold hands. So, a jumper, heated vest on tickover and a warm breeze over the fingers makes a lot of difference.
 
Thank you both! Yeah, a fan heater would probably make a decent difference actually, I'm basically fine aside from cold hands and toes (and the latter can be fixed with slippers!)

Edit: Oh, and thermostat is in the landing just next to the entrance to the room, but not in the room itself
 
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dirtychinchilla said:
Bear in mind that gas is something like 4-5x cheaper than electricity, so I'm not personally convinced that an electric heater makes sense over gas.
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Its about 3.3x cheaper, but thats also before efficiency losses, if you assume 90% efficient boiler then thats 3x.

Really the main thing is how efficient is the house at containing warmth. If its good then heating the whole house might not be that bad, but if its low then its almost certainly better to constantly heat a small contained space.
OFC what happens later in the day counts as well. If they want a high heat across whole house then the expensive part, getting the house up to temp is still going to happen later.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Its about 3.3x cheaper, but thats also before efficiency losses, if you assume 90% efficient boiler then thats 3x.

Really the main thing is how efficient is the house at containing warmth. If its good then heating the whole house might not be that bad, but if its low then its almost certainly better to constantly heat a small contained space.
OFC what happens later in the day counts as well. If they want a high heat across whole house then the expensive part, getting the house up to temp is still going to happen later.
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Fair point. I'm not sure there's a straightforward answer. I don't believe there would be a significant saving and manic has expressed that he's not really fussed about the cost.
 
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