Heating on 140 Hours!

[Yippiedoo]

So from 1st Dec upto today our heating is showing as being on 140 hours. I leave the heating on constant during the day set to 20, then down to 12 overnight.
Based on others usage, does 140 hours for a month seem reasonable or very high? It's the first time I've tried a full month leaving the heating on constant. My husband won't be happy if we have a huge bill 🙈

Depends on your house and location of the thermostat.

even when it dropped to minus 8/9 pre Christmas our internal temperature at night never dropped below 12 degrees. One wall is a sun trap (but has no windows on it) but because of this it radiates heat back in over night. In the summer though it was unbearable and hotter inside then out.

temperature, boiler heat setting and if you have any radiators on/off will make more of a difference than just assessing the hours spent on

OP said it was set to 12 overnight. Ours is as well and it's not come on overnight at all so far.

Come back when you've got your bill and tell us what it was.

Just because the thermostat is set to 12 overnight, that doesn't necessarily mean the heating will come on.

Oh my god I hope you are loaded, what a waste of money! Just buy a 15 tog duvet, there is absolutely no need to have it on at night

Mine wouldn't come on overnight at 12 degrees. My heating is in a sense always "on" but if I don't want it on-on I just turn it down low enough.

This is going to cost you a fortune!

It sounds about right, mine was 100 hours for December at 18.5 degrees from 5.30am to 5.30pm

Why is 4 hours per day of heating during the winter a big issue? Sounds minimal to me.

We do the same, it's fine.

Your husband needs to get involved in the logistics if he ‘won’t be happy with a big bill’. WTAF is he - a child?

That's not how central heating works. The OP had it set to 20 degrees (or whatever), and it required 140hrs of heating to maintain the house at that temperature. If she changed the thermostat to a lower temperature, the number of hrs of heating required to keep the house at that temp would fall.

But unless you actually change the boiler temp (e.g. from 70 to 60 degrees) each hour of heating will cost the same because your boiler fires up to the same temp each time it's on.

Ive just read our bill from SSE. I sent in readings a few days ago.

Our heating is constantly on 18-19 degrees, day and night, and has been since Mid October

Our bill for the three months is just under £200 which we are thrilled with

Same here, particularly in light of the fact that it was a cold December. We had pretty much a fortnight where the temperature outside didn't go above zero.

PS when it was -8 degrees for the few days, we turned the thermostat upto 22.5. It was very very cold.

This is impossible unless you are running other heating

My heating is set the same OP. Awaiting our first bill but it’s worth it to keep our health.

Depends how high your boiler is set and where your thermostat is. Does not sound that big to me.

So many people do not know how their heating works or even how to use a thermostat, it seems...

To give you an idea, my heating is around £1/h - gas condensing boiler on some eco setting, variable rate for energy. I think it's around £1/h for most people unless on a very good fixed rate.
So that would be £140 for heating (plus standing charges plus your electricity consumption ). That seems reasonable to me in the current climate.

That's not how things work with modern gas boilers and thermostats.

The boiler doesn't run at 100% when doing small top-ups to maintain a set temperature. It might only come on for five minutes to give a small amount of heat to raise the temperature from 19.5°C to 20°C. The pump will keep running afterwards to distribute the heat around the home. This might happen three times per hour and the radiators probably won't even get hot.

It costs more to maintain a higher temperature due to thermodynamics - i.e. a hotter object loses more heat than a cooler object, but it is all related to the outside temperature.

'Inside temp' minus the 'outside temp' = Delta T

If it is 0°C outside and you warm your house to 19°C, instead of 20°C, you will save 5%. In this example Delta T= 19 or 20

If the outside temperature is 10°C and you warm your house to 19°C, instead of 20°C, you will save 10%. In this example Delta T= 9 or 10.

When it is 0°C outside, it costs twice as much to heat your home to 20°C as it would if the outside temperature was 10°C. In this example Delta T= 20 or 10.

Lowering the flow temperature saves you money because the boiler return temperature will be lower, which means the boiler will be more likely to 'condense' and will be running more efficiently - e.g. 90% efficiency instead of 80% efficiency. But it will take longer to heat your home, because your radiators won't be as hot, so 'boiler hours' will actually increase.

The only way to determine the true cost is to check the meter readings.

So 7.5 hrs a day x 31 days = 232hrs in a month!

Also is it a Combi and including showers/hot water?

We have the exact same settings on our thermostat and it comes on considerably more than 140 hrs a month in Winter. North of Scotland, stone farmhouse though.

It's not impossible @HotChoxs ours hasn't come on at all since we had the cold spell and then it came on for around an hour a day.

We live in a terrace with neighbours who obviously like to heat their houses. It's currently 19° and the heating hasn't been on for around 13 days at all.

Congratulations, your 4 bed mid terraced has lower heating costs than anyone I've ever heard of, even newbuild 1 bed flats