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

[Cheeky Monkey]

-3 tonight, perfect time to defrost that freezer, put all your Cornettos and fish fingers in the conservatory/shed/outhouse/dunny overnight.

 

[nicko31]

-10c round these parts this morning. Charlton beer money draining away

 

[juliant]

-3 tonight, perfect time to defrost that freezer, put all your Cornettos and fish fingers in the conservatory/shed/outhouse/dunny overnight.

Exactly what i did last night with the garage chest freezer ! Looked weird with all of our freezer contents on the back patio and jesus my fingers were numb at the end but job done for this year.

 

[Weststander]

I didn't realise how good the latest argon filed double glazed windows are compared to those made in the 80's and 90's. In my house their thermal performance appears to be better than a 1960's wall that is has been cavity filled (i do wonder how well its been done)

Replacing windows and beefying up loft insulation to me seems a higher priority than say solar panels for electricity. For most people in the UK 80% of our energy use is from heating (often gas)

Friends in the construction sector tell me that when they take down outside walls ‘filled’ with injected cavity insulation, there are always voids without insulation. Blocked in the process by wall ties or it’s simply impossible to carry out comprehensively blind.

 

[Weststander]

I've got cavity wall insulation booked in for the beginning of January and I was thinking about getting a window company around to take a look as I think we're in the same situation as you.

Our bedroom (at the front downstairs if you can remember your visit) is the coldest room in the house. My side of the bed is by the (also bay) window and I can feel cold air coming round the blinds every night.

I had read something that suggested that the window panes themselves being cold is a good indication of the windows working, but I'm not so sure. At my mum's house, which is always toasty warm for far less gas usage, her windows aren't freezing to the touch like ours are.

On that last bit, I think that suggestion is incorrect.

We’ve Danish made modern triple-glazed patio windows across a wide north facing elevation. The inside pane never feels cold, even in this weather. No condensation too.

 

[Bodian]

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.

Like with my experiments regarding the advice of 'only turning it on when needed' - I have always been a bit dubious about this 'only heat the room you're in by shutting the doors'. That's fine if you're not using a room long term, and can sort of close off part of the house altogether - but I always thought the point of 'central heating' was to heat the house through air flows between rooms and so on - it's often air flow that makes you feel cold / warm, not the actual heat of that air itself (which is the logic/theory behind stove top fans and so on). After all, in many systems the water still has to go through the pipes - it just doesn't then also go through the radiators that are off.

Anyway - we used more gas last night keeping the house at 13° overnight than we did two days ago keeping the house at 16° during the day. It must have been pretty nippy out there (we had ice on the inside of our single pane window for the first time for years). All over tomorrow though - back to more normal December temperatures? Monday is forecast to be 11° here!!

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Like with my experiments regarding the advice of 'only turning it on when needed' - I have always been a bit dubious about this 'only heat the room you're in by shutting the doors'. That's fine if you're not using a room long term, and can sort of close off part of the house altogether - but I always thought the point of 'central heating' was to heat the house through air flows between rooms and so on - it's often air flow that makes you feel cold / warm, not the actual heat of that air itself (which is the logic/theory behind stove top fans and so on). After all, in many systems the water still has to go through the pipes - it just doesn't then also go through the radiators that are off.

Anyway - we used more gas last night keeping the house at 13° overnight than we did two days ago keeping the house at 16° during the day. It must have been pretty nippy out there (we had ice on the inside of our single pane window for the first time for years). All over tomorrow though - back to more normal December temperatures? Monday is forecast to be 11° here!!

I agree with your point about turning radiators off. There is the added problem of messing up the balancing and having to keep bleeding them to get rid of the air. All our radiators are on and some rooms are better insulated than others. One major and unforeseen issue we have at the moment is the underfloor heating in the kitchen/ living area at the bottom of the house has stopped working so we are losing heat all over the house. That’s why we keep our other living room door closed.
We don’t heat the house at night. Two duvets and thermal pyjamas do the trick.

 

[Motogull]

Ruddy Nora.

Our daily cost has doubled this week. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[Curious Orange]

Thought I'd revisit this thread, given the snow outside. The tweak to the plumbing seems to have done the job and the radiators are now coming on a lot more strongly and evenly, and I've been able to reduce the target flow temperature for the boiler to 60C (from 75C previously). More importantly the boiler isn't on the whole time now either, and the whole house is comfortable to live in.

As an aside our thermostat allows us to set target temperatures for several different periods throughout the day, which we have set to 22C and lower.

No idea on how much we're paying at the moment - but we should be able to see how all this has affected our usage in due course.

 

[Weststander]

I adjusted our Worcester combi boiler flow temperatures way down once the energy crisis came, following reliable independent advice.

Going against traditional/manufacturers advice, for us it turned out that 50c to 55c is fine for the CH, with HW set at just high enough to give bath/tap water temperatures to suit needs.

This is all explained here. Combi boilers aren't given the chance to recycle heat, if flow temperatures are too high. The dead giveaway is plumes of condensation from the outside flue.

 

[Curious Orange]

It is a different mindset with condensing boilers, as you get better efficiencies by heating everything within the thermal envelope of the building to a consistent temperature. The aim is to make the best use of the lower flow temperature so that the return temperature to the boiler is low enough for condensing to occur. TRVs are actually a bit of a nuisance under this model, as shutting off radiators reduces the surface area where heat transfer can happen.

 

[Bozza]

Thought I'd revisit this thread, given the snow outside. The tweak to the plumbing seems to have done the job and the radiators are now coming on a lot more strongly and evenly, and I've been able to reduce the target flow temperature for the boiler to 60C (from 75C previously). More importantly the boiler isn't on the whole time now either, and the whole house is comfortable to live in.

As an aside our thermostat allows us to set target temperatures for several different periods throughout the day, which we have set to 22C and lower.

No idea on how much we're paying at the moment - but we should be able to see how all this has affected our usage in due course.

I need to look at this.

We had a new condensing boiler fitted at the beginning of January and I asked the engineer about the flow temperature and his way of working was, essentially, to whack it right up to about 80 with the logic seemingly that if the water was scorchio then the radiators would be hotter, themostat temperature would be reached quicker and the whole system would be able to take a breather.

So, what I did was monitor gas usage against how long the heating was on for (by which I mean how often Hive reported the boiler was actually working to produce hot water for the heating).

With the flow temperature set to 79, as left by the engineer, it was averaging 21.5 kWh of gas per hour of heating. It's a 24kWh boiler so I guess this implies some efficiency gain as, otherwise, it would be a full 24 kWh of gas used per hour of heating.

I turned the flow temperature down to 70 on the 20th January, and the average dropped to 20.1 kWh of gas per hour heating.I wonder if I should turn it down further?

 

[Curious Orange]

I need to look at this.

We had a new condensing boiler fitted at the beginning of January and I asked the engineer about the flow temperature and his way of working was, essentially, to whack it right up to about 80 with the logic seemingly that if the water was scorchio then the radiators would be hotter, themostat temperature would be reached quicker and the whole system would be able to take a breather.

So, what I did was monitor gas usage against how long the heating was on for (by which I mean how often Hive reported the boiler was actually working to produce hot water for the heating).

With the flow temperature set to 79, as left by the engineer, it was averaging 21.5 kWh of gas per hour of heating. It's a 24kWh boiler so I guess this implies some efficiency gain as, otherwise, it would be a full 24 kWh of gas used per hour of heating.

I turned the flow temperature down to 70 on the 20th January, and the average dropped to 20.1 kWh of gas per hour heating.I wonder if I should turn it down further?

Is yours a system boiler, or combi? Ours is a 30kWh system boiler, so 60C target flow is as low as we can go to avoid legionella in the hot water tank. We're heating a four bedroom detached house, hence the more powerful boiler.

 

[Bozza]

Is yours a system boiler, or combi? Ours is a 30kWh system boiler so 60C target flow is as low as we can go to avoid legionella in the hot water tank. We're heating a four bedroom detached house, hence the more powerful boiler.

System, ie with a hot water cylinder.

 

[Rowdey]

Is yours a system boiler, or combi? Ours is a 30kWh system boiler, so 60C target flow is as low as we can go to avoid legionella in the hot water tank. We're heating a four bedroom detached house, hence the more powerful boiler.

No one's ever died from Legionaires in a domestic setting in UK - The turnover of water doesn't let 'L' propagate - If you were worried, you could set an alarm to really heat up the water once a fortnight/month on immersion or buy a timed immersion to do that for you.
The slight downside, is the lower HW temp you go, the more you will use unblended with cold, and possibly run cylinder out quicker. Worth experimenting with tho..

 

[Curious Orange]

No one's ever died from Legionaires in a domestic setting in UK - The turnover of water doesn't let 'L' propagate - If you were worried, you could set an alarm to really heat up the water once a fortnight/month on immersion or buy a timed immersion to do that for you.
The slight downside, is the lower HW temp you go, the more you will use unblended with cold, and possibly run cylinder out quicker. Worth experimenting with tho..

Yeah, I had heard the chances were vanishingly small. I tend to enable heating of the tank in the hour before the central heating comes on in the morning (with a couple of top ups later in the day), and it can take as little as twenty minutes to reach temperature depending on what has happened the day before. I don't have the hot water and central heating on at the same time as I've found this increases the return flow temperature, and stops flow around the extension where the two returns are plumbed together in a 'T' before heading back to the boiler - I might get that fixed if it eventually proves really annoying not to be able to do both at the same time, as there is an obvious way to alleviate the issue.

 

[portlock seagull]

Chilly AGAIN today! Come on UK summer, sort self out or the heating gets it

 

[fly high]

Chilly AGAIN today! Come on UK summer, sort self out or the heating gets it

Thought about it last night.

 

[BN41Albion]

It was lovely today ffs anyone considering putting heating on at the moment seriously needs their head checking

 

[birthofanorange]

It was lovely today ffs anyone considering putting heating on at the moment seriously needs their head checking

Indeed, unless they live in the arctic circle.