Heating on whilst away, in winter?

[loveawineloveacrisp]

Bit of a boring thread, sorry. I'm away on holiday and I can see from my Nest app how cold my house is (about 13 degrees). Would you put the heating on

Oops posted too soon. Was going to say just for an hour a day, to stop the pipes from freezing?

Nope, I really wouldn't unless there's a drip feed? 🤔

Ours has a frost setting, so it keeps the house warm enough to stop the pipes freezing, not sure what temp that is mind!

No drip feed - like what? No one in the house.

When I last checked, 13 degrees isn't freezing? Unless you mean farenheight in which case, it was negligent to leave without doing this anyway!

It will be fine. I have mine on 9 when I’m away and whack it up the day before I come home.

Weput ours on an hour a day, and it reached 12 degrees.
It then needed a good few hours to get up to a habitable temperature the day before we got back.

Yes. I leave mine on about 18.
Anything else and the house is just miserable and cold for hours.

No need at all. Our house regularly goes below 13 in winter. I wouldn't worry until it goes below 5.

Hive has a frost setting.

13 is fine.

We just set the thermostat to a lot lower, say 10. But we have warm air, so it heats up again quite quickly.

Id whack it on the day before you return otherwise cold walls take ages to feel warm.

13 is fine. I wouldn't let mine go much below though.

You don’t need to with an app. We used to the old fashioned way to make sure the house wasn’t icy when we got home but these days you can just put it on a few hours before you’re home.

13 is fine.
I'd keep it in double digits, and wack it up a day or 2 before you come home - our house takes a good few ats to warm through if it's got really cold.

Hive frost setting is 7.5 I think, but even when we were away over new year it didn’t get close to that. Just make sure you give it plenty of time to get back up to temperature before you return.

I set our Nest to Away and that puts it on Eco meaning it will kick in if it goes below a certain temperature.

@Sinkintotheswamp you heat yours to 18 while you’re away? Isn’t that basically burning money?!

We have Hive. If you turn the system off it goes into frost protect mode, meaning that if the temperature in the house were to dip below 8⁰c then the boiler would come on.

I would say 13⁰ is fine.

Mine can be 13c when I'm home! It's fine

I think it depends how insulated your house is. We switched it off for two weeks in November and when we came back it was 9 degrees which is miserable and took days to heat back up. I think I would leave it as normal which is an an hour in the morning, an hour at lunch then 5 hours in the evening at 18 degrees

13 is not fine, it’s very cold. 16 is the minimum temp for health. Any lower and you risk damp, mould and respiratory illness . We have 16 upstairs and 18 downstairs, which I often override to 20 when it feels damp and chilly.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c5986f8ed915d045f3778a9/Min_temp_threshold_for_homes_in_winter.pdf

While you're away it's fine I mean, the pipes won't burst at that temp
Sometimes my home is 13c in some rooms, mostly around 16/17c during the day and drops overnight
No mould issues, I do use a dehumidifier as I have to dry washing inside

Thanks, I've just left it at 12 now and will put it on the day before we go home.

Not in a few days it doesn't.

OP your Nest should have a holiday mode or you can just programme it to kick in above a low temperature (12/13 C would be fine). It's not that cold at the moment, so unless your house is very poorly insulated, it won't come on much so won't cost a lot of money, but will stop it getting too cold.

These devices also learn how quickly your house heats up, so if you have it set to be warm when you get home, it will know when to start up to achieve this.

It's better than coming back to a miserable cold house. If I had a Nest / Hive I'd have it lower and turn it up the day before.
Coming home is bad enough. Coming home to cold is even worse.