To ask a house maintenance question (that I should probably know the answer to)

[Bhgsa]

For a bit of context I am a single parent and haven’t been away with ds since he was born. He’s now 5 and this week we are going away for a week in the uk. I feel really stressed! Random things keep coming into my head and one of them is should I turn off the hot water settings?! At the moment the water comes on automatically twice a day for half an hour each time. I don’t really want to meddle with it as I’m not good with that sort of stuff but then I started wondering what will happen if it keeps heating up twice a day and not being used? Will something explode? Is it dangerous etc. Hoping for some mumsnet help!

Ahhh I feel a bit stressed now about what to do with the heating!

In the hall the thermostat has never gone under 15 degrees when off so I have assumed it wouldn’t ever go below 10? Is this a stupid thing to do? I was going to have the house warm before I left. I’m not wanting to leave it off to save money, it’s because I’m worried about leaving a system running while I’m not around

What sort of system is it? Old fashioned with tanks in loft or is it pressurised like a Megaflow system?

@TouchoftheTism its a condenser (I think!). With the nest thermostat. I’m not sure what to do.

Need a bit more info!

Is it a pressurised system? Does your hot water come out as fast as your cold?

The key question really is do you have any water in your loft? If not then the chances of freezing are next to nothing.

Do you have a holiday mode on your control panel? Nothing is going to explode you will just waste money heating things that you don’t need

Just put it down to something around 7 or 8. If it doesn't go below 10, that's effectively off. If it does, you've saved your pipes freezing. You're massively overthinking this!

I think OP isnt keen on the boiler firing up when she's not there. Can see why it would be a problem though.

The stopcock should be turned off if going away for a week though. You dont leave a car with the engine running.

If you turn the stopcock off then then you may as well leave the boiler off - it's going to struggle to heat the house with no water...

What happens if there is a power cut? Would the heating just come back on low still if I set it at around 19 degrees and the power came back on?

Turning everything off is far more dangerous than leaving the system running as normal, because of the risks of your pipes freezing .

If you have a nest system, can you programme it from an app on your phone?

If so I would look for holiday mode, or otherwise set the thermostat to be a constant temperature of around 10 degrees. You can turn the hot water off, and turn it back on when you return .

We’ve had power cuts and the boiler just comes back on as normal when power returns .

I wouldn't touch the stopcock if just going away for a week, we've gone away for 3 weeks before and didn't cross my mind. Don't fiddle around with stuff that works just fine.

Ok so leaving the nest on 10 degrees regardless of a power cut is the safest option?

its 11 degrees here today so feels quite warm!

@TouchoftheTism boiler is in the garage and this massive cylinder is in there too