What temperature do you usually have inside your houses, what is the thermostat at, or when does the heating go on for winter?

[Ootohere]

?

How has it gone with people this winter so far?

 

Has it been milder so far from past winters and have you set thermostats lower and managed to use less energy / fuels? 

[fabdavrav]

4 hours ago, roottoot said:

?

How has it gone with people this winter so far?

 

Has it been milder so far from past winters and have you set thermostats lower and managed to use less energy / fuels? 

 

 

I don't alter mine at all as I don't have one.....I do have an internal temp sensor which stays at the same temp setting throughout the year. The weather compensation (with external temp sensor) aspect of the master controller takes care of the building heat loss & outside/internal temp differences etc...😎

Edited 10 February, 2022 by fabdavrav

[Ootohere]

@fabdavrav  So has your winter temps so far been milder this year over the past and has your system meant less energy was used?

Did you decide that comfort is more important than saving a few quid, and might that change next year if the energy is quite a bit more expensive?

 

This winter so far my gas use has been lower than then it has been for the 9 years i have been in this house just because of milder weather and maybe because the flat upstairs have had their hearing on and i do not lose so much energy. 

[fabdavrav]

1 hour ago, roottoot said:

@fabdavrav  So has your winter temps so far been milder this year over the past and has your system meant less energy was used?

Did you decide that comfort is more important than saving a few quid, and might that change next year if the energy is quite a bit more expensive?

 

This winter so far my gas use has been lower than then it has been for the 9 years i have been in this house just because of milder weather and maybe because the flat upstairs have had their hearing on and i do not lose so much energy. 

 

Outside temps are higher this winter (so far) so obviously the heat loss from the building is less.

 

Comfort?..18.5C is what mine is set to..Only time mine goes lower is at night (or if I'm away)  & then only down to 14.5C..& most people who alter their thermostats/ sensors all the time & turn the heating completely off to save money etc.....They don't realise in fact they are consuming more energy & possibly doing damage to the building (due to shifting the dew points in the structure) & possibly voiding their home insurance...

 

 

It is better to have the heating on all the time but to a lower temp, than to turn it of & then have to heat the place upto a higher temperature....much like once you are at a motorway cruising speed your fuel consumption is less than somebody driving the twisty back roads...

 

 

[cheezemonkhai]

I imagine there's a degree of how your house is constructed in that though?

 

For example older homes or other homes with big amounts of mass in the building will hold and retain heat.

The advice we got given for modern insulated homes is turn it off when you're not in, because the heat will stay or leave but won't be absorbed.

 

A bit like your approach, I take a compromise which is 17.5-20 depending on the room and time of day,  but overnight everything is dropped to 16 degrees.

 

[fabdavrav]

17 minutes ago, cheezemonkhai said:

I imagine there's a degree of how your house is constructed in that though?

 

For example older homes or other homes with big amounts of mass in the building will hold and retain heat.

The advice we got given for modern insulated homes is turn it off when you're not in, because the heat will stay or leave but won't be absorbed.

 

A bit like your approach, I take a compromise which is 17.5-20 depending on the room and time of day,  but overnight everything is dropped to 16 degrees.

 

 

My older house has thermal mass...BUT when you boil it down its still all about the thermal loss of the building regardless of construction.....if you leave the heating on all time & say you set it to 18C with a switching differential of 1C..then the boiler will fire up when the internal temps drops to below 17C & will switch off when the internal temp gets to above 19C...as over the 1C switching differential 

 

Turning the heating off will allow the internal house temp to drop to 5C as usually this is the boiler frost protect mode in a standard system.

[Ootohere]

My house has been damn cold since i switched the gas central heating off a few weeks ago.

It has mostly been between 14-15 *oC which has been acceptable.

 

Today sitting at 12.8*oC inside so thank goodness the frosts might be about over until later in the year.

I have been tempted a few times to stick back on the heating but i am too tight too before about September.  

 

[Lady Elanore]

You would hate my house. I like to come home after a day working outdoors, to a cosy, warm house  

[john999boy]

1 hour ago, Lady Elanore said:

You would hate my house. I like to come home after a day working outdoors, to a cosy, warm house  

It wouldn’t be that warm if the hifi system wasn’t always on standby though. 😜 

[Lady Elanore]

18 minutes ago, john999boy said:

It wouldn’t be that warm if the hifi system wasn’t always on standby though. 😜 

 

 

You can see me out of your pooter box?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?       😱 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited 2 April, 2022 by Lady Elanore

[lol-lol]

On 11/02/2022 at 10:56, fabdavrav said:

 

My older house has thermal mass...BUT when you boil it down its still all about the thermal loss of the building regardless of construction.....if you leave the heating on all time & say you set it to 18C with a switching differential of 1C..then the boiler will fire up when the internal temps drops to below 17C & will switch off when the internal temp gets to above 19C...as over the 1C switching differential 

 

Turning the heating off will allow the internal house temp to drop to 5C as usually this is the boiler frost protect mode in a standard system.

 

Thermal Mass, an under used term IMO.

 

Heard it at the renewable centre at  Llwyngwern slate quarry near Machynlleth but one feels it at many places ie big old church, going down a deep mine etc.  I had a large ambieet room temperature fish tank which I am sure helped even out the room temperature over the day and night.

 

Trying to stop my radiator heating coming on at all and just use the gas for heating the water, outside the 4 hours I get the 5p a kWh lecky.

The boiler firing and transferring hot water to the upstairs tank spreads some heat through the house.

 

Might plug a small oil filed radiator in to the solar battery energy reserves and hope for a sunny day to power it back up again.

Smart meter said I used no gas yesterdat but I think that is wrong, will check back to Octopus's dsahboard later on as perhaps it is a quirk from the change over yesterday to the doubling of the cost of gas or perhaps they gave us a free day !!

 

[Breezy_Pete]

Battery powering heaters?, hmm, good luck with that.

 

[Ootohere]

We can expect more people to start using Used (WVO) & (SVO) New Vegetable oil from the cash and carry to run generators to produce electricity to be charging their EV's and running the Air Source Heat Pumps, Oil Filled Radiators, and various electric appliances including the Electric Fryers....

 

Back to the future. 

[lol-lol]

3 hours ago, Pete_Ex-Wino said:

Battery powering heaters?, hmm, good luck with that.

 

 

Yes yes.  Charge up the (poorly named) solar generator (really a largish battery with solar panel controller, ac invertor and many DC outputs 5v, 12v).

 

Plug in a 0.75 kW oil filled radiator when I come down stairs in the morning and it will run for the morning lifting the temperature in the dining room and lounge.  Solar power starts cranking up from about 10 am ( 9 am GMT) but the sun does not start to pour thru the patio doors until gone 11 am which really makes the house warm which is when I disconnect the, also mis-named "radiator", as it is really a convector device, from the "solar generator".

 

I bought the 1.8 kWh Bluetti/Poweroak EB180 and it seems to do the job and I do not regret getting that one rather than the EB240 2.4 kWh but I plan to add a AC300 or AC200 Max and that will become the core of my battery powered centre-piece to power most things in the house between 0430 and 2300 bedtime and then the cheap Octopus GO tariff clicks in at 0030 to heat the water in the immersion tank and charge up the Zoe.  Also top up the EB180 /AC300 and additional interconnected battery units for the day ahead. 

 

[gumdrop]

We had a neighbour that controlled the temperature by opening windows, I showed them the user thermostat and how to set it.

It lasted a week before the opening windows began all over again.

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Plunked the heating off during the "warm" spell. Now it's cold and my Mum's put the heating back on.

 

On the subject of thermostats, we've not got one that's independent from the boiler... and the boiler lives at the back door. So when we've got it open the boiler goes mad. Thinking about getting one that's in the living room and linked to the boiler that way instead, in a bid to save a couple of pennies and so we're not all melting every bloody time the dog needs out. I'll speak to the gas engineer when he's out for the service.

[Rustynuts]

On 02/04/2022 at 12:21, AnnoyingPentium said:

Thinking about getting one that's in the living room and linked to the boiler that way instead, in a bid to save a couple of pennies and so we're not all melting every bloody time the dog needs out. I'll speak to the gas engineer when he's out for the service.

Simplest solution for you would be a wireless room stat, then you can fit the stat anywhere you like easily. I do a lot of these for upgrading systems.

[AnnoyingPentium]

3 minutes ago, Rustynuts said:

Simplest solution for you would be a wireless room stat, then you can fit the stat anywhere you like easily. I do a lot of these for upgrading systems.

 

Aye that's the ones I was thinking on, thank you. We had a wired thermostat in the old house and it made sure the place wasn't always bloody melting.

[Ootohere]

So i have no heating on yet but this coming week is going to be the start of the reminder on what a cold house is like when going to the toilet or shower and the cold when shi-ttingting around inside.

My intention is to go as long this winter without firing up the gas central heating.   Time will tell. 

 

Nice that my DD will not be getting taken and £16 credited to my Eon Next account, then £17.

Presently i am using £64 a month of electric and standing charges on Electric & Gas and that is on a fixed tariff until February.

 

Condensation in cars this morning and 'Damp Tramps' are now inside and in the boots. 

Some house electric might get used for 10 minutes once the snow & ice / freezing weather comes to de-ice the EV.

 

Much Cheapness so far.  

Edited 24 September, 2022 by roottoot

[lol-lol]

On the Dining room thermostat 20 to 21 C.

Hive thermostat moves in 0.5C steps.

 

Half of the "radiators", (properly described as water filled wall mounted convector heaters, mostly whitish in colour), are shut down currently as it is mild.

 

Thankfully to the generous handouts by our current UK government my worry about heating has largely gone away so I will set the temperature at what myself and my lad are comfortable with.

 

His bedroom is over the garage in my 1990s house so seems to run a bit cooler which is a shame as he is very slim like I use to be a likes it warm.

 

Women tend to like it a couple of degrees warmer than men so not having women in the house helps the bills I think.

 

With gas going to be set at only 10.3p per kWh pretty much carte blanche to use gas as much as we like.

 

With Germany bringing forward Emergency Rationing plans one wonders that they will buy up gas on the market and leave the UK short of gas as we only produce half of what we need and with the UK economy so weak and the currency falling,  plus only about 100 hours of reserves, we may get in to a position of needing to ration ourselves despite what Liz 4x2 said ? 

 

Edited 24 September, 2022 by lol-lol

[Ootohere]

So the first credit of £66 has appeared on my account, which is nice.

 

I wish they had not stopped taking the £50 DD with the last one in September,

but i intend seeing for how long i can keep using under £2.50 a day in Electric, no gas and the standing charges.

So £75 max a month.

Currently that is just £2.17 a day, so £65.

Extra kWh use sometimes with Battery chargers for ICE vehicles, or just charging Electric Bike batteries &  occasionally need using or pre heating EV in the worst of a freeze up. 

 

 

Edited 7 October, 2022 by roottoot

[Phil-E]

So I just got my 300€ bonus from the German government. Basically they've paid everyone a one-off 300€ energy crisis bonus to help us all pay the expensive gas and electricity bills. Obviously we then have to pay tax on it (of course!)

 

We are also just in the process of buying a house. It's pretty well insulated but lacks the triple glazing we've been used to in our current flat.

 

We'll likely have a new boiler fitted as the current one is from 2003 and the German government are bringing in new rules from 2024 where at least 65% of the energy for a newly installed heating system has to come from renewable sources.

 

I'm looking into fitting a "mini" solar system (you're allowed up to 600w without having to oficially register it) since we use a steady ammount of electricity throughout the day we would make savings (no feed-in tarrif for these systems).

 

Then I'll also look to plumb in a heat-pump water heater in the future.

[Ootohere]

I am not as tough as in my younger years. 

 

I decided the gas central heating had to go on.  I have been feeling crap for 7 days since getting a tooth out for 6 days since a day after getting the Covid & Flu vaccines.

 

The house had got to 8*oC inside and the windows were running with condensation with the temp outside below freezing.

within 5 minutes the heat was going into the radiators and within 10 minutes.

 

Set to 16*oC and i will see how that goes. 

[fabdavrav]

All this "turn the heating off"...best way to damage the building, & your electronics as most standard electronics e.g. computers/TV don't like temps lower than +12c

 

Most property/buildings insurance requires you to keep the building at circa +14c .....its written into the terms/conditions small print.

 

In a standard system:- turning the heating off, the boiler will usually only switch back on when it registers +5c or lower on the flow/return pipes in the boiler. This function to prevent to boiler from freezing inside the heat exchanger.

 

Leave the heating on & turn the main thermostat/sensor down to +14c to +16c

 

Much cheaper, as the building is then at a steady temp, as the thermal mass holds the heat as a buffer, instead of wild temperature swings & then having to heat it back up.....

[Gaz]

Get well soon George 👍

 

Gaz