Central Heating - on yet?

[Beebo]

Me and my partner try to have it off as much as we can. I get very hot in bed, and so does she but that's apparently the way she likes it. She never wears many clothes either; I'm always on at her to wear a jumper and then we can have it off all day. But she prefers fewer clothes and having it on more

Is your wife sporty?
Nudge nudge, say no more. Eh!

 

[presta]

I've been experimenting with leaving it running all day with the thermostat at 20 degrees and lowering the output temperature of our gas boiler. It's an old Glow Worm " Ultimate 50FF " traditional boiler which they stopped making in 2005 ot thereabouts. The manufacturers data sheet says it is 76% efficient in heating mode and a little over 50% efficient in hot water mode. It fires up at random times during the day when the temperature drops. Did that all over the three coldest months Nov / Dec / Jan to see what the gas consumption was. A bit of an eye opener when you see the gas usage converted to kWh 😮

If you just compare your fuel consumption you're not really going to get a reliable answer, because the heating load won't necessarily be the same for both periods.

I've run my heating continuously since October 2023, and compared the last two complete winters on continuous against the previous three winters with timed heating. The timer switched off the heating for 7 hours overnight, which amounts to a 29% cut in hours, and the fuel saving from timed heating that I've measured, with the fuel consumption normalised to the heating load, is about 8% (352W/K compared to 382W/K). This seems to compare quite favourably with the figure of 10% that I'd previously calculated using computer modelling.

Timed heating does save fuel, but not in proportion to the hours cut, because the relationship isn't a linear one.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Was that deliberately written in the style of Viz?

I did try yes. But it is also true (about the heating)

 

[raleighnut]

Me and my partner try to have it off as much as we can. I get very hot in bed, and so does she but that's apparently the way she likes it. She never wears many clothes either; I'm always on at her to wear a jumper and then we can have it off all day. But she prefers fewer clothes and having it on more

@fnarr

 

[gbb]

For perhaps the first time in decades, ours is on sporadically, particularly
a blast in the morning so the kids don't get 'cold'...but partly because my ill wife is very prone to feel really cold atm.
I can't stand it....

 

[Webbo2]

We moved in to our house 6 months ago. It’s 3 stories and has underfloor heating on the ground floor and radiators on the other floors. However the radiator on the middle floor has no rad valve. So if we leave the thermostat on that floor in order for the towel rails in the bathrooms to be on. It means the radiator is also on.
So the heatings on and given Mrs W hates being cold I often find the floors are suspiciously warm at times.

 

[Accy cyclist]

That would be way too warm for most people - it is 25C.

Are you sure you aren't a lizard-man?

I used to think of 70 Fahrenheit with a slight cooling breeze as a perfect summer's day, but now that'd be too cool for me. I now think of 80 Fahrenheit and above as being nice and warm.

 

[Accy cyclist]

More than "somewhat". I think I'm older than Accy, but we were taught Celsius (or at the time Centigrade) in school, and I really don't remember weather forecasts coming in anything else as standard.

I've always used and looked at Fahrenheit as our traditional way of measuring temperatures. 🤔 However, in the last few years I've tended to look at the Celsius system before the Fahrenheit one, which is slightly worrying. 🧐👎

 

[Accy cyclist]

More than "somewhat". I think I'm older than Accy, but we were taught Celsius (or at the time Centigrade) in school,

Yes, whatever happened to Centigrade which rings a bell, I wonder! 🤔

 

[raleighnut]

We moved in to our house 6 months ago. It’s 3 stories and has underfloor heating on the ground floor and radiators on the other floors. However the radiator on the middle floor has no rad valve. So if we leave the thermostat on that floor in order for the towel rails in the bathrooms to be on. It means the radiator is also on.
So the heatings on and given Mrs W hates being cold I often find the floors are suspiciously warm at times.

There has to be one radiator without a valve in a system with a condensing boiler in case the boiler kicks in on a timer and there's nowhere for the heated water to go.

 

[lazybloke]

There has to be one radiator without a valve in a system with a condensing boiler in case the boiler kicks in on a timer and there's nowhere for the heated water to go.

My boiler has an automatic bypass valve.

 

[raleighnut]

My boiler has an automatic bypass valve.

For a central heating install to be to current regulations there must be a rad without RTV and all the others MUST have one fitted.

 

[Mike_P]

For a central heating install to be to current regulations there must be a rad without RTV and all the others MUST have one fitted.

and I understand the one without an RTV should be one in the room with the thermostat in it.

 

[Tenkaykev]

and I understand the one without an RTV should be one in the room with the thermostat in it.

Ours goes through the towel rail type radiator in the bathroom.

 

[Tenkaykev]

If you just compare your fuel consumption you're not really going to get a reliable answer, because the heating load won't necessarily be the same for both periods.

I've run my heating continuously since October 2023, and compared the last two complete winters on continuous against the previous three winters with timed heating. The timer switched off the heating for 7 hours overnight, which amounts to a 29% cut in hours, and the fuel saving from timed heating that I've measured, with the fuel consumption normalised to the heating load, is about 8% (352W/K compared to 382W/K). This seems to compare quite favourably with the figure of 10% that I'd previously calculated using computer modelling.

Timed heating does save fuel, but not in proportion to the hours cut, because the relationship isn't a linear one.

Thanks for the data, I have just last week installed Home Assistant on an old 2012 MacBook Air. I'm in the process of exploring the various options for monitoring various devices,