[Misc] Have you put the heating on yet? (2022/23 edition)

[banjo]

It has been on, but after getting my latest bill not for as long in future.

 

[Comrade Sam]

We didn't put the heating on until my wife read an article on the BBC that claimed under 17 degrees is bad for brain function, then my daughter claimed allowing her to live at that temperature was child abuse. Now we use the heating!

 

[Hendrax]

We've had ours on for the past week.

On a timer for the morning and evening for a total of 6 hours. £3 a day it's costing. Half the price of the electric.

Doesn't seem right to me.

 

[Durlston]

Bill for November was £410.

Now, we put our heating on much earlier than most households it appears but I'm currently living with my parents - who are in the elderly category - it is so nice to come home to a warm house and getting up for work in comfort although it's dark in the mornings at the moment.

I paid £137. Safe to say that I would have lost close to most of that money in the first week of the World Cup had I been betting on it in all probability.

I may have problems but thankfully money isn't one of them.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

If you have to work from home for reasons noted elsewhere, and all you do is sit at a desk with spreadsheets and other computer stuff, not really moving around or doing anything physical much, I have to have tbe heating on as it's cold otherwise and not pleasant. Especially as Mrs Cat feels the cold badly these days.

 

[Icy Gull]

We've had ours on for the past week.

On a timer for the morning and evening for a total of 6 hours. £3 a day it's costing. Half the price of the electric.

Doesn't seem right to me.

Nor me, we have quite a big house and gas heating is £3 an hour

 

[Bozza]

We've had ours on for the past week.

On a timer for the morning and evening for a total of 6 hours. £3 a day it's costing. Half the price of the electric.

Doesn't seem right to me.

No it doesn't.

Unless you are on a very low fixed deal, gas is likely costing you 10.3p/kWh.

So, £3 per day for 6 hours equates to 50p per hour, which would be under 5kWh of gas per hour. It would have to be a very small boiler for that. Someone with more experience in such matters may be able to say whether such a boiler exists. Ours uses c20kWh per hour of use - essentially £2 per hour.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Wore sock liners today as well as my normal boot socks….lovely warm feet for working

 

[nsclurker]

If you're WFH, get a little heater to go on / under your desk. No point heating the whole house when you're only using one.

 

[Bodian]

Last three days gas
51kWh
77kWh
75kWh

380kWh for the last week.

It's on at 15.5° from 6am till 6pm - when the log burner takes over (and the living room gets considerably warmer).

I've tried experimenting with a 2-hour hotter blast (18°) morning and late afternoon, as all the advice is that this is more efficient / cheaper than leaving it on low all day. So far, I haven't quite worked out which is best. Our usage is slightly up from last week (two-hour blasts), but it's been far colder outside.

 

[Bozza]

Much more than we should be currently, I've identified an issue with the the plumbing which means the boiler can't get into condensing mode and has to work harder than it should to get heat to radiators in the original part of the system. Not entirely our plumbers fault as there is clearly an underfloor issue in the existing system that was exposed when the new and old were spliced together... and not identified previously as, well, the heating wasn't on!

How do you work that out?

I managed to find the online user manual for our boiler and it suggested if you have an in-home thermostat (as we all do, don't we) to up the boiler temperature to the max and let the thermostat do its thing. So I did that a few days ago.

Today when looking at our usage again, I noticed we were getting less hours heating for the kWh of gas used which roughly coincided with me upping the boiler temperature. A bit more investigation today led me to take more generic advice to keep the boiler at 60-70 degrees, so I turned the dial down again!

 

[clapham_gull]

I moved into a new house this year and havent had the time to work out the new fangled heating.

It went wrong and the engineer (unrelated) told us that some override emergency heating on the water boiler (if the gas fails) was locked into a constant on position.

He fixed it and according to the smart meter daily electricity usage dropped immediately.

 

[Bozza]

Would it make a difference to not let it go off for those two short periods in the evening ? An hour in the morning is sufficient for us to get ready for work and yesterday we managed just 4 hours in the evening (5.15 to 9.15) with no gaps. We also have Hive and Ovo which at least takes away nasty bill surprises. As to what you can do, my guess is not much because you have kids. You don’t have the option of staying in one room and benefitting from the door not constantly being opened. We have a log burner for supplementary heat but have only had a couple of fires this winter so far as that’s also not cheap. We did take delivery recently of a large amount of logs though so it’s always a back up. Our biggest luxury this Christmas will be a full house of family with the heating and log burner on all day.

It was only off because it had topped out at the desired temperature. We're still playing with things to try and find the setting which is the best compromise of gas usage and comfort. I think I had it at 18.5 degrees yesterday, so it would overshoot to c19 degrees. Today I set it to 19.

Last year - before this era of silly energy prices, we left all downstairs open all the time and I largely lived in shorts and t-shirts.

This year, we close all the doors, meaning the room we spend most time in - the lounge/diner - retains the heat. The problem is the kitchen does not have a radiator in it (not sure why the previous owners did that) so it's pretty chilly. Our bedroom, which is also downstairs, is probably the coldest room in the house so it's now not able to take advantage of the warmer air from other downstairs rooms circulating. As a result, despite its radiator being on full blast when the heating is on, the room still never feels warm.

We do have a log burner in the lounge/diner that we'd literally never used in the c8 years we'd been in the house. Until last weekend. It's a nice addition!

 

[Bozza]

The basic rule of thermodynamics means the window panes want to be at the same temperature as the room and they are attracting the energy to do so, so agree with you. I've just opened a window as I type and the outside pane is significantly colder than the inside - which is what you'd expect. The whole idea of the double bit of glazing is to separate the 2 panes so that one is outside temp, the other inside. My thoughts are that it isn't necessarily the sealed units that are the problem in my case, it is the frames and seals around the units that cold air is penetrating and getting sucked indoors - like you, sit next to the bay window and you can feel a proper draught of air.

What type of CWI are you going for?

I've been researching the closed cell polyurethane foams, namely:
BASF WallTite
Isothane Technitherm

Considerably more expensive than typical CWI. An example would be for a typical fluff installation £1k, graphite coated beads I'd be looking at £2.5k, Technitherm £7k.

However, the PU foams have a considerable performance advantaged, can actually be used in flood risk situations, act as wall stablisation and can replace the need for wall ties, air tight but breathable.

The red flag for me is being confident the external brickwork / masonry is in excellent condition with no pointing issues, cracks or defects. The cavity then has to be thoroughly checked that it is clear of debris, and that isn't just their inspection scope once in each elevation, it needs to be done at regular intervals to be sure no broken bricks, bits of mortar etc. fell into the cavity during construction or other works. You also want to make sure the wall ties don't need doing. If going beads or fluff, you don't want to be replacing those after as when they drill for the replacement tie rod, the back of the brick always pops out and will just sit in the insulation getting cold and damp.

How on earth does anyone thoroughly check the cavity in the way you describe?

The filling will be: ‘Grey Carbon Saver Bead’ which I assume is this stuff: https://www.thermabead.co.uk/services

Your posts on this worry me though, I must admit. I wonder if the money would be better spent on getting that window changed.

 

[Bozza]

To be honest, the word "blast" was a bit of an exaggeration! We live in a 300 year old cottage with poor insulation. It's bloody cold unless we have the heating on for a sustained period. And not long after my previous post, Mrs Jim in the West decided that things have got too miserable, and she'd much rather go without a holiday than suffer in the cold all day. Hence, as from today, we'll have the central heating on most of the day! In reality we're lucky that we CAN afford to heat the house well AND take a few holidays a year...it's just a natural instinct, I think, to want to preserve energy (and money) wherever possible.

Yeah - I guess that's where we are too. We can afford to pay these ridiculous bills - not least because we have a sizeable credit built up with our supplier, but I don't want to have to pay these ridiculous bills. And, as you say, we want to be responsible citizens with our usage. We've managed to cut down on our electricity usage quite substantially over the last few months, relative to the same time last year, but gas is more of a challenge with the current weather. Our November usage was way down on November 2021, but this month is broadly matching December 2021 and, as we all know, gas is a LOT more expensive now!

 

[Bozza]

Our 2-bed semi (built in 2014) seems to be pretty efficient.

Put heating on for the first time a few weeks ago (mid-November) and been getting away with 1 hour heating in the morning and 1 hour early evening. A couple of days in the last week we've pressed the button for an additional hour at lunchtime (both work from home).

Indoor temp ranges from around 17º to 19.5º despite it being 0º outside for the last week.

Thermostat is next to the front door and I've noticed light and a cold draught around the front door frame, so ordered some draught excluding tape to pack out the gap and hopefully improve things further.

Have got the trickle vents open still on a couple of the windows, but may close those.

A low of 17 degrees is the stuff of dreams for us. our Hive thermostat is down to c13 degrees at night currently, but it's in a relatively warm room. I suspect my bedroom is 10 degrees, if not cooler, in the middle of the night!

 

[Curious Orange]

How do you work that out?

I managed to find the online user manual for our boiler and it suggested if you have an in-home thermostat (as we all do, don't we) to up the boiler temperature to the max and let the thermostat do its thing. So I did that a few days ago.

Today when looking at our usage again, I noticed we were getting less hours heating for the kWh of gas used which roughly coincided with me upping the boiler temperature. A bit more investigation today led me to take more generic advice to keep the boiler at 60-70 degrees, so I turned the dial down again!

I've been pissing about with the rads for days trying to get them to heat evenly and noticed the return pipe into the boiler was almost as hot as the flow to the touch, I pulled up the boiler diagnostics and it was only a couple of degrees difference. My understanding is that condensing mode only kicks in when the return is less than 60C, and generally the difference between flow and return should be about 20 degrees which is accounted for by what is used by the radiators.

Basically I believe the flow and return to our original system got transposed when the extension was built and there is an additional T into the return that the plumber couldn't see that means a good portion of the flow is getting routed straight back to the boiler without visiting a radiator first!

Swapping the flow and return into the old part of the system back over should fix the issue.

 

[Bold Seagull]

How on earth does anyone thoroughly check the cavity in the way you describe?

The filling will be: ‘Grey Carbon Saver Bead’ which I assume is this stuff: https://www.thermabead.co.uk/services

Your posts on this worry me though, I must admit. I wonder if the money would be better spent on getting that window changed.

They drill a small hole normally 10-12mm or so to match the size of the pointing and use an boroscope which they should be able to rotate and get a good look in the cavity. It’s a question of doing these regularly enough to be satisfied the cavity is clear. It’s relatively straight forward normally a surveyor will have a decent battery power drill and a bucket of mortar mix to fill the holes after, and shouldn’t take very long.

I’m not looking to worry anyone, just be cautious, these insulation companies offer extraction as a service as much as filling. There is advice out there suggesting spending a bit more on a 3rd party specialist surveyor doing your cavity inspection plus the wall ties to give you an independent opinion from the installer.

The main reason they need to extract isn’t the insulation, it was the state of the walls in the first place.

That bonded Thermabead is what I’ve also been looking at as the bonding agent means it doesn’t settle over time. They do state they offer cavity clearance if obstructions are found in the cavity, so may well be they do offer a thorough survey. Below is a picture of what they'd need to do if they found obstructions, namely remove bricks and clear the debris out.

 

[Justice]

Still no heating bar using it for 1-2 hours per week to dry washing and dry the air/any condensation. Have used the wood burner 4 or 5 times this winter when entertaining -but logs aren’t cheap either! Need them to last until March. When I’m working from home, wrap up really warm. Mate wouldn’t believe when I was on a Zoom call with him the other day, I was sitting in a house that was 10 degrees - had to show him the thermostat

I’ve sort of got used to it - As long as it’s dry and not draughty, it’s manageable with slippers, fingerless gloves etc and moving about regularly. I’ve always been a ‘no-central-heating’ type person because I find it makes the air stuffy. Tbh, have been far colder staying in Scotland in the middle of winter. It’s playing havoc with my asthma though. Ultimately, not only helpful on the pocket but kid myself I am helping the environment.

(I don’t have young children or pets at home so just as well but if I did, I certainly wouldn’t subject them to living in such a cold indoor environment)

The biggest irritation is that a cuppa stays hot for only about 60 seconds!

I moved into a new house this year and havent had the time to work out the new fangled heating.

It went wrong and the engineer (unrelated) told us that some override emergency heating on the water boiler (if the gas fails) was locked into a constant on position.

He fixed it and according to the smart meter daily electricity usage dropped immediately.

Fixed it? he turned the immersion off

 

[BN9 BHA]

Fixed it? he turned the immersion off

I have made a note of that ‘technical term’