To wonder am I the only one who knows that

[youllneedthisfish]

DP thinks that if you turn the thermostat on the central heating up (25+) the heating will get warm faster (from not being on).

I know this to be true, but he will not have it.

He also puts the oven on at 250º thinking it will reach 200º quicker (then not turning it down and burning everything)

Am I right????

Depending on the boiler, and I don't know enough about central heating, you can turn the flame higher or lower.

I imagine that for central heating, the flame will be at the maximum all the time it is on.
But it may vary with heating water for personal use (showers, taps) because we want water at a constant temperature. Not boiling, then cold. :)

Also to point out that you can have different degrees of electric heating. You can regulate heaters for higher or lower heating settings, as well as the thermostat. Like with blow driers or light dimmers.

Glad it isn't just me though okay

With thermostats the control is basically a binary control. Its either "on" (and heating the house up) or "off" (so no more heat is being generated). So if the thermostat is currently sending an "on" signal there is no advantage to turning it up (unless you want the house to get hotter than the current cut off temperature).

Ovens with a temperature control work in a similar way, its only "gas mark" ovens which get hotter faster if you turn them to a higher setting.

And yes, you can turn the boiler to heater water higher, but that's not controlled (usually) by the thermostat.

Yes! Mrshoarder - that the sort of answer I wanted. Articulate my inarticulate logic on this. Thanks!

My DH puts oil in a frying pan puts on the heat and then wanders off. Twice I have caught it smoking and burning. He thinks it "needs time to heat up".

You're welcome. Now try and explain it to one of the silly "lets incinerate dinner" folks.

Oil does need time to heat up, for an omelette it needs to be steaming a bit first. For deep fat frying slightly hotter, food should sizzle as it goes in. Though it doesn't take long, especially on gas, you wouldn't want to leave it more than 2 minutes.

These misconceptions have led to what could be called the "seminar room wars".
The air conditioning would be turned on shortly before class and people would turn it to, say, 28ºC to heat up faster, leading to massive overheat.

It led to the controls being locked. :)

It's still not perfect, as air conditioning units have the further disadvantage of blowing hot or cold air. Oh, well.

can I add the people who don't understand that if you want to call the lift, you press the button for where you want to go (up or down) and not where you want the lift to move from (say, up if it's on a lower level from you, even if you want to go down)?

DH was convinced till he burnt it out that turning the car A/C down to it's lowest, meant that the car cooled down quicker. Really couldn't get his head round why that was't the case. sigh. Wouldn't have minded the stupidity so much, if it had been his car and not mine.

Yes Filly, so you put the frying pan on then get the eggs, whisk them up, chop up anything you need and its ready. No need to walk off.

I do that with the oven. Because I'm too lazy to wait for it to preheat properly. But I've just realised that makes no sense at all.

With the central heating, it depends on which number the boiler is on.
On maximum it reaches the room target temperature the quickest, on 1 the slowest.
With an electric oven I wouldn't know .

Jamie told me (and everyone else who bought his book) to turn the oven to 250 to heat up, then after putting in food turn it down to 200, so the oven keeps at least 200 degrees despite the door having opened, and doesn't have to build back up to desired temp once food is in there.
Or it might have been Hugh. Or Delia. Well it was someone who knows more than me about these things.

ah but Lisascat that does make sense cause it starts hotter - and given that its going to lose heat when door opens, it should even out at nearer the right temp....

Oh god, the toaster! I thought that was a 'level of toastedness' too.
Definitely a moment now.

This actually works with my gas cooker. The flame is stronger the higher the setting. It is an old cooker so not sure if it would be the same with a newer version.

monkeymamma As mark would say 'you're trying to trick the boiler?!'

OP I'm worried we are sharing a DP! Mine is exactly the same and he is an engineer so surely should understand better.

surely it kind of is levels of toastedness though? As in if you put it in for one minute it is less toasted than if you put it in for 4 minutes??

Is that really true about the toaster? Wow, who'd have thought! So does the 2 setting toast for twice as long as 1, 3 for three times as Kong etc?

Why did my nexus just autocorrect long to Kong?

Someone told me that the numbers on the toaster were actually minutes... but I timed it on both of my toasters and it's really not. The time does increase with each number but it would do anyway surely? Hmm.

Btw I had two toasters at the time because we bought one when we moved in and then a friend gave us a lovely one that matched our kitchen but that didn't fit much in. So we kept that one on display but actually used the one we bought more

Also wouldn't the defrost setting on the toaster have to be a bit cooler than the actual toasting settings? Or is that bollocks? I'm really interested in how toasters work now!

I don't understand about the toaster! Why would you want it in for longer if you could get it quicker? Who would choose to wait 5 minutes when you could have it in 1 minute? Doesn't make sense to me

Is your DH this man? (Jealous if so!!)