Heating overnight

[Frotheecoffee]

Live in a flat and it's extremely cold overnight. Currently the hall is 14 degrees. Extremely cold throughout. DC is in my bed tonight. The thermostat on 15, and it will go all night I suspect. WIBU to leave it on all night or would that be terribly wasteful?

We never had the heating on as a kid. I used to wake up shivering multiple times in the night.

I keep the flat at 22/23. Costs about £100/month. Assuming you can afford it, there's no medal for toughing out a cold night.

@C8H10N4O2 a quick google suggests 12 is a more normal lower temperature, and the OP’s recent post suggests it’s not getting below that.
I agree it gets a bit competitive on here and I also hate being cold, but there’s really no need to have a bedroom particularly warm at night when you are under a duvet.

Wasteful or not, if you're cold and uncomfortable (and can afford it), put the heating on! Why suffer when it's an easy fix! I hate being cold so it's a no brainer for me.

Different people have different ideas of comfortable, though.

It's 17.7 degrees in our living room and I'm wearing thin cotton leggings, a t-shirt, a cheap Oodie knock-off and some slippers. There's also a blanket over my lap and I'm perfectly comfortably/cosy. If the heating was up any higher I'd be too warm.

@catelynjane I find an oodie (of whatever sort) and a blanket uncomfortable really. I like to wear less. I don’t, because at 17.5-18 I’d be cold. I don’t think you can say it’s a cosy temperature, it’s just a balance. I absolutely can’t wear slippers at any price though, and I hate socks!

My house can be as cold as 11 degrees at night. My kids are always toastie in their beds, as am I. The kids wear regular pyjamas and my teen DS doesn't even have an extra blanket on! The issue is getting up! You can definitely develop a preference for sleeping in the cold.

My sitting room drops to 15/16 degrees. I have a climote and switch the heating on when I wake up and usually stay in bed for a half hour.

I mean - it's cosy for me. Everyone is different. I don't like houses much above 18.5 degrees as I find I get a headache and it feels really stifled and uncomfortable.

We bring hot water bottles to bed and even that's too warm to have them in the bed beyond warming it up.

22/23 and I'd have to be in a t shirt and shorts! Everyone is different eh!

That is useful to know thanks. I think the Hive kit (in three parts) just has poor software but since the problems have sometimes required human intervention because the three parts don't automatically reconnect and align its pretty useless as a remote management tool. UPS has helped but its still not fully reliable. I wasn't impressed!

Whatever google says, the only opinion which matters is your home insurance documents if you ever need to make a claim.
Mine says 15C when the house is empty, 14C when occupied. DM's house was similar as was FiL's (which was 15C with no distinction between people in the house or not). Others will vary. By all means turn it off at night but if you are going to let it drop below 14C check your insurance isn't affected.

Nothing about a minimum temperature on mine. It says it doesn't cover damage from frost or mildew and those could both result from consistent low temperatures but my boiler also has something that kicks in if it gets too close to freezing. 15 is a long way off that.

Electricity is much cheaper than gas. Get a heater for your bedroom and put it on a plug in timer. Heating the whole house overnight is unnecessary and will cost you a bomb.

Mine is set to:

19°C overnight.
20°C during the day.
21°C evening.

In terms of costs, i think it would probably be cheaper to run heading at, for example, 18°C 24x7 than to heat the house to 21°C and then let it cool to 13°C overnight before heating it back up again in the morning.

No it isn't.

Gas is 6.9p per kwh.
Electricity is 30p per kwh.

Our gas alone would be around £25 - 30 a day if we had it on overnight.

Like OP, I live in a flat. Couldn't you just heat the family wing of your palace, @deepsea9?

Well in our house it costs way less to use electric heaters to heat rooms than it does to have the heating on. Gas is bleeding us dry at the moment.

If you can afford it and means you are comfortable it's fine, each to their own. I don't have central heating and cannot envisage ever being able to afford having it installed so have become hardy. But, I cannot bare the thought of my old dog being cold so he has a mini oil filled radiator beside his bed downstairs, which many will think is wasteful. After reading this I am intrigued how cold my bedroom gets, so I am going to buy a little thermometer to see but I am always snuggly although getting up in winter is a shock to the system.

Ours goes off overnight. We like it super cold with heavy blankets on to sleep well. Heating comes on an hour before the alarm goes off

@Danceswithweasels you are absolutely right. An old dog deserves that

Based upon our meter readings, we've averaged 67kwh per day since the 1st December. That works out at £4.62 per day including hot water but not the standing charge. We're a family of four, so heating costs £1.15 per person per day. That's well within our means and it's nice to be warm and cosy.

According to my Tado smart meter system, we would only save £12.50 by reducing the temperature by 2°C - which just isn't worth being cold for!

3 bed 1930’s semi in London.
10cm of loft insulation.
Modern double glazing.

21°C evening.
19°C overnight.
20°C during the day.

But that's exactly my point - people come in and say someone is unreasonable for being cold because they themselves are not cold.

I meant to come back to add - I said earlier it's often 12 degrees when I get up. I fully expect it to be less tomorrow, as the heating went off while I was in the bath abd when I checked tge thermostat the temp had dropped from 17.5 to 14.5.

If I could afford it, I'd set the overnight temp at 15 and leave it on. I have oil CH though and no money.

"while I was in the bath abd when I checked tge thermostat the temp had dropped from 17.5 to 14.5."

That's exceptionally fast heat loss. Do you not have any loft insulation?

Temperature update this evening: I had the heating from around 3pm to 7pm, thermostat set to 19 in the (artic) hallway so rooms were toasty. Then the temperature dropped very quickly after DC went to bed to 14...so on goes the heating again now. Part of the issue is rather thick external walls on 3 sides of the flat.

Good point around the oil heaters, I do have one in each room as a back up and will consider putting one on a timer in the bedroom (DC co-sleeps as it's easier all round).

It's a constant juggle! I agree with PPs that it might not necessarily break the bank to have the heating on constantly during a cold snap and balanced out by drastic drop in consumption during the hot summers of late. Though I appreciate that's a fortunate position and doesn't apply to everyone.