Better to keep heating on constant ambient temperature or flick on when needed?

[behappy1736]

Does anyone know if it's more cost effective flicking the heating on when you need it or keeping it at say 19 degrees so the temperature is consistent and it comes in only when it drops below that temp?
So this morning it was pretty chilly and thermostat read 16 so I flicked the heating on and it took at least 30 minutes to reach 19 degrees.
I just can't work out what is better.
Any help much appreciated thanks

It’s not that cold? That’ll depend where people are, it’s freezing here, literally I mean, just had to de-ice my car.

Of course. Where I am it was 9/10 degrees yesterday and it was 4 degrees this morning. So it could get a lot colder and my house is already only 16 degrees inside.

The article on the BBC had the tester in shorts and t-shirt. I’d be very interested to see the effects of 18 degrees on someone who is dressed for the weather as opposed to the BBC scaremongering about the effects of cold on people who wander around nearly naked.

Yes he was.

Is it a Viessmann? We have a new one and it's odd that the radiators are only ever warm, never hot. The temperature appears to be more stable though

@ItsRainingPens yes I think that’s it. The rads are warm to touch but almost never hot. I do find the flat pretty warm to be fair. He set the thermostat to 19 and I’ve dropped it to 16/17 as fine at that temp. And to be honest it’s been so mild till recently haven’t needed it higher.

We leave ours at 18 all day and it just clicks in and out so it's not on all day, sometimes in the evening I put it up to 19 or 20. Obviously when it get colder it won't be clicking off much if at all so will be more expensive.

It's not just how long your heating is on for with a combi boiler. The cost of that time will depend on the flow of your boiler. We turned ours down last year and it means it takes the place longer to warm up than it use to when the boiler was running flat stick but the efficiency is so improved that overall we use far less gas to maintain our home at 19.5c. (I work from home and have a chronic illness that doesn't play nice with a cold home)

@Mitzigaynor

the thing you need to bare in mind is that so much depends on where your thermostat is situated.

if he's got it in the hallway where there's a draft, it'll keep pumping out heat & his sitting room will get hot. If he had it in the sitting room it'll clock off much sooner.

But it's clearly on too high if he needs to take his jumper off, but he needs to put his thermostat somewhere that the heat will be constant not up & down.

You heat when you need to. I was told by a friends DH it was cheaper to keep it on, the bill was 4 times the normal size. I see someone said they had condensation on an exterior wall,I assume that actually means,internal wall. Unless you have rising damp(experienced that in a previous property) damp doesn't permeate through external brickwork.

I keep reading this. It’s 6 degrees where I am! I’ve a scarf and gloves on . While I accept it may be milder than a normal November it’s hardly too warm for some kind of heating.

It's -1c here today, there's like an icy fog. Going to peak at 7c today.

I agree with this, I was frozen through when we had a spell in September when the house was 18°C inside. Now I only feel slightly chilly if it drops below 16°indoors. I have adapted. This is why we feel the urge to eat carbs in the autumn, to help us keep warm!

Now it feel way too hot in public buildings where they have the heating on!

I am working from home.so sitting a lot, but wearing thermals and jumpers, and have sheepskin liners inside my slippers though! And I have a well insulated, non drafty house.

On the original question - I have always found it more expensive to have the heating going on all day, even at a lower temp, than to have it come on and off when needed.

I tried having it on 24x7 on a low temp - heating bill doubled compared to switching it on when I needed it!

All that happened was it came on in the middle of the night when the temperature dropped and I was tucked up in a warm bed and was off early evening when I actually wanted the house to be warm.

The article does state he wore a short sleeved top and shorts so the scientists could access his bare skin for the experiment.

The effects on cognition and blood flow to the brain in colder temperatures was quite concerning.

But it had that effect because he was cold, it’s not an intrinsic effect of 18 degree weather. If he had been warmly wrapped up and not feeling at all cold, the effects wouldn’t kick in until lower temperature.

He says himself one of the first signs was goosebumps. If I’m wearing an oodie and thermals, I don’t get goosebumps at 18 degrees and I suspect the other effects also don’t kick in until considerably lower temperatures as well.

It’s why I think it’s scaremongering and unfair to people who can’t afford to heat their homes. It could scare people into heating houses to levels they can’t afford because the BBC says if they don’t, they are hurting their families.

His body was diverting blood from the brain to warm him up. If he’s warm enough already, no such diversion of blood occurs.

All the heating engineers I've spoke to have said leave it on. I've tried it both ways and it's definite cheaper to flick it on and off as needed

@Talia99 the experiment was to test the impact at 10 degrees, which is the temperature they say an unheated home could fall to this winter. If they'd got him wrapped up, it could have taken hours to see the effects! What they wanted to show was that 18 degrees is a comfortable temperature so if you can't / won't heat your home to that, then you need to heat yourself.

Currently my home is unheated, it's 9 degrees outside and inside is 15 degrees - each room has a thermostat and it's the same in all, even the ones that were heated this morning. I'm sat working wearing fleece socks, trackie bottoms and a huge Primark fleece snuddie. My nose is cold but the rest of me is warm. Last year I did not dress like this, and I heated the room all day to 21 degrees. I simply can't afford that now.

Ok so this week has been -6/7 most nights and not really getting much above -1 during the day. I have a nest thermostat, cavity wall and loft insulation and double glazing as well as the boiler being new in 2017. The thermostat flicks to away when we leave and back on when home but during that time the indoor temp has been dropping to 13.5 so the heating has had to be on solidly for a couple of hours to get to 17. Yesterday I left the heating on 16 all day (never on overnight), my app shows the heating was on for 7 and 3/4 hours on Friday but only 5 and 3/4 yesterday, I can’t seem to compare the prices on my smart meter from Friday to Saturday but if it’s been on for less it’ll have cost less? And it will only have worked hard in the morning to get to temp from over night

The thermostat flicks to away when we leave and back on when home but during that time the indoor temp has been dropping to 13.5 so the heating has had to be on solidly for a couple of hours to get to 17. Yesterday I left the heating on 16 all day (never on overnight), my app shows the heating was on for 7 and 3/4 hours on Friday but only 5 and 3/4 yesterday,

but you were heating to 16 degrees on Saturday and it was on for less time than when you were heating to 17 degrees on Friday - a higher temperature inside.

What was the temperature outside on Friday and what was the temperature outside on Saturday?

Both pretty much same temps both days it’s been the same all week here. I’ve been turning it down to 16 when I come in or after an hour as I find with the true radiant thing on nest it overshoots that temp and feels warmer anyway, I’m trying to cut down on degrees to save money and find out which way is cheaper

This is my usage on the 3 coldest days, you can see where it has had to work hard for longer on Thursday and Friday making the time the heating was actually on higher compared to Saturday but like I say I’m not sure how much difference in cost there is going to leave it off when at work tomorrow and see if there is a difference

That's an interesting graph. Do you happen to have the total kwh usage or the cost to see which worked out most cost effective?

I find it much more expensive to have it maintaining a high temperature all the time.

It's easier to budget as well if you say you have 4 hours per day and know exactly what the cost per hour is.