To still not understand the best way to use central heating?

[CherryCake54]

Can someone please settle the yearly debate about gas central heating once and for all?

Is it better to leave the heating on low majority of the day?

OR

Is it better to put it on at regular intervals throughout the day as and when needed?

I try to figure this out every year in various ways but I'm still none the wiser.

Please help!

A central stat controls whole house. Rad stats control the rad only. They do not like draught & work only at 100% efficiency in a closed room., bathroom or wardrobe etc. when choosing a central heat stat chose a wireless one, & put in your living room.

If your house is cold within an hour of your heating going off, you don’t have adequate insulation .
For that, I'd recommend low heating all day.

Our new build is so energy efficient that 3 hours a day, two am, one in the evening keeps our house hot for all but the coldest of days.

Make sure you're not losing heat by draught proofing and using winter weight curtains etc.

@CherryCake54 I don't have a central thermostat either. My heating is all electric and each radiator has a digital thermostat that can be programmed. Its a new build i moved into January last year. So far its cold inside in winter even with heating on and roasting in summer

I reccommend hive. you have a central thermostat and then individual room thermostats or you can put thermostats in key locations. I only switch on radiators for the parts or the house I am using and also can schedule heating depending on when I am home etc. all be controlled from your mobile so very handy

Our house thrives on the "on all the time on low" model. Otherwise it just doesn't get warm, damp is fostered, etc

It was the same in our office - heating on blast first thing, still too cold til lunchtime, when it flipped to too hot, then steadily back down to frozen fingers again.

I took.over the heating regime and had it on low all day - which even saved money. But it has to be the right kind of property. And even then, I'd say spending a small amount extra a day (as long as it is a small amount) to be comfortable all the time is better than only occasionally being ok.

The best way is to experiment. I did last year and found with our house that leaving it on low (17/18 in the day, 16 at night) was the cheaper way. We have a hive thermostat in my ds room which is the coldest area in the house and we've had damp problems over the years which we've just got on top of in the last 3 years. Every house is different.

The replies here illustrate why it's hard to have the same rule in every house. A thermostat set at 17 /18 is never going to make your house cosy and would be too cold for me.
A comfortable temperature if you are inactive is probably 20C. If you are rushing around then cooler is fine.
What I do is have heat on 2 hours in the morning, thermostat at 20C then on again at 4pm for another 4 hours. If the living room feels cold I heat that separately with the stove.
On very cold days when I am home all day the heating is on all day.

When I lived in a similar house to you (reply above), I also didn't have a thermostat other than the knobs on the radiators. That's why I used to manually switch from high to low and back as needed.

But it has to be the right kind of property. And even then, I'd say spending a small amount extra a day (as long as it is a small amount) to be comfortable all the time is better than only occasionally being ok.

Yes that's what I found in my property - it was definitely the better way to do it for us in that house. And I agree, I was willing to spend a little more in order to be comfortable; I rationalised that spending almost as much to be quite uncomfortable much of the time was pointless and a waste of money.

I would be willing do without many things in order to be a little warmer, if it's feasible.

Will any local heating engineer do to fit the thermostat?

If it's not replacing an existing thermostat is it quite a big job? Does it need to be connected to the pipes or something??

If you get a Hive (or other wireless smart thermostate) it's quite a straight forwardjob. There is a part that goes on your boiler (wired), a part that plugs into your WiFi router and a wireless thermostatic control.

The thermostat needs to be in a room use use often, or the middle of the house (hall/stairs).

Like I said, it's worth getting a smart one because you can program it from phone to different temps through the day.
So we have ours kick in 30 mins before we wake up to 20deg so it's comfy getting dressed
Then when everyone goes out to work down to 15 (so it's doesn't drop too low) then back to 20 before we come home and down to 16 overnight

When we lived in a house without a thermostat, we had to have one radiator without a thermostatic valve (though this is some time ago) to protect the boiler - it needed somewhere to vent the heat when all the thermostatic valves turned off. We had the heating on a timer. If you've got thermostatic valves on all your radiators, then maybe there's a thermostat somewhere?

We live in an 80's house, with reasonable, but not awesome insulation. When I go to bed, the temperature in my bedroom is usually around 21C. 8 hours later through the night, with the boiler off (thermostat set very low during the night) last winter it would be 18C if I woke before the heating switched on in the morning. That included nights when the outside temp dropped to -5C. That's adequate insulation; it sounds like you might want to improve yours?

Yes. Gas left burning constantly is more energy than just firing up when needed.

I don't think turning the boiler on uses particularly much more energy than it being on in general.

But I don't get this put it on for an hour stuff, if I want it on because I'm cold, then I want it to stay on. The reason that you'd turn it off and on is to avoid heating an empty house with nobody in it.

Well the premise of turning it on for an hour then off again is a hopeful attempt at saving money by having it on less but hopefully maintaining enough residual warmth. Whether that is the case or not is still up for debate...

We don’t have a thermostat either as far as I know. Ours is set to come on at 6 in the morning until 7.30, then again at 5pm, and we control the temperature on the individual radiators. In summer the radiators are all at zero so the boiler only heats water.

We’re NE Scotland and it is already pretty cold, so I put it on again about midday and have the radiators in the kitchen and living room on low. Before bed I will put the bedroom one on for a wee bit. The spare room one is turned off completely but DP uses that room as an office while WFH so it will go on while he’s in there (he’s away with work this week though).

Mine is set to click on if below 12c at any point
Then an hour in the am and an hour in the pm to click on to heat to 18c
I worked out what I could afford and that's how long it stays on for

Yes get a thermostat. Game changer!
My moveable thermostat (not Wi-Fi) cost about £150 for the thermostat and fitting. I now have heating set at 18oC for 2 hours in the morning and 19oC for 4 hours in the evening. It costs less and is way less faff than without a thermostat as it was getting too hot and then too cold all the time.

I just turn the thermostat up to twenty when I get up on a morning as I pass it, then turn it back down to five when I go to bed.
I don't know if this is the most efficient way or not, but I'm happy with my method.

Following!

What does it mean to “keep it on low”?

It depends on what heating system, air source heating with wet underfloor heating-on all the time set to a moderate temp.

Gas or oil boiler with radiators- on a timer.

Rayburn- on all winter.

We are in an old thatched cottage, ours comes on for an hour in the morning then off. On again 4pm until 10pm. It’s lovely in the evening but chilly in the day. When I WFH I need a blanket. Can’t afford it on all day though (oil).

So then is your question is it better to have it on at 22c for an hour and then turn off, or have it set to 18c for the whole time you're home? (Adjust figures depending on your temperature preference).

That's a different question. And for me always the second. Constantly jumping between very warm and too cold sounds like a nightmare. I just like being comfortable.