Heating what saves money?

[morbidd]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but is it more cost effective to set the thermostat to a desired temperature like 18 degrees to keep the house warm and obviously the heating switches off when it gets to that temp. Or would you just put the heating on a couple of hours a day?

It's a combi boiler, if that makes a difference.

Just bought my first home and not used gas before and used to living in high rise flats, so it's often warm. So I am a bit panicked and confused.

Does anyone do this with the thermostat? Is it expensive?

Thanks for the help.

I have done this experiment in the last 2 weeks, I used to have the heating on for an hour in the morning and 3 hours in the evening, in between the thermostat was set to come on at 13.5C. I was frequently freezing whilst trying to work so I decided to try having the thermostat set to 16c for an hour as usual, then at 15c for the day before 18C for the 3 hours in the evening.

The first day, the heating was on for 8 hours, the next couple of days for 5 hours and now the house doesn't really get cold, it has been on for between 3.5 to 4 hrs a day and I no longer feel freezing.
My house isn't heated to tropical temperatures but also the heating isn't having to work so hard in the evening to warm the house up after it has gotten so cold during the day.

It's almost always cheaper to put the heating on when you need it for just the rooms you are using, and then turning it off. You're aiming to stop rooms becoming cold and damp, so when it's really cold, and you put the heating on, you might want to have it on low in unused rooms for a couple of hours.

This time of year, you probably only need the heating on colder days for an hour or two mornings and evenings. I' turning it on for an hour and a half in the evenings. I wfh, so I'm layering up during the day (thin wool layers) and wearing an Oodie in the evenings.

If you read you meter before you go to bed tonight, and then again on Friday night, you can divide by three to calculate an average daily usage. You then need to convert these units to kwh. Each kwh is costing you about 10p.

I’ve been having my heating on for two hours in the morning, off all day then on from around 4.30 until 8.30 (set to 18).

This week I have had it on at 18 all day.

It has been much the same times for both and I’ve felt warmer this week.

That’s in a mostly well insulated flat with the living room closed off until the end of work.

The only way to know what YOU will have to pay is by reading your meter and doing the calculations. The colder it is, the harder your boiler has to work, so the kwh you use will vary, but once you know what you're using, you can budget.

Without heating, I was using about 60kwh a week for cooking and hot water. (about £9 a week with standing charge and VAT)

Last two weeks, heating has been on for an hour or two in the evenings in some rooms and I', using about 160kwh a week (about £19 a week).

Last year, I used over 75kwh a day for half the days of the month. I don't think my (Victorian) house is particularly cheap to heat, but last year, I was on a fixed rate and had the heating on all day. Not this year.

Throughout November our CH was set at 19 degrees and was on from roughly 7am to 11pm as we are both retired.

We pay BG the standard rates by variable DD so pay each month for the previous months actual useage.

Just seen the gas bill for November use, £87.90. So not tropical but certainly not cold, and not a crazy price to pay imo.

@morbidd

has anyone asked before? Only about a hundred threads each winter 😂😂😂

you'll get people telling you that each way us obviously better/cheaper. You'll get people saying the gas man/boiler company/neighbours dog has 'told them'

After years of debate I'm as yet unconvinced, I think it depends on your house, your insulation & lifestyle.

Take a meter reading, do it one way one week, take another reading, do it the other way for a week & take a reading and IF the weather is much the same each week, you'll have your answer. If it's not repeat one method depending on the weather forecast.

It is dependent on lots of things. Generally there are two things, one is keeping yourself warm, the other is keeping the house at a temperature that stops it going bad. There is also the other issue that if you say heat for 1 hour a day then you know (or should be able to calculate) your costs in advance, so it is easy to budget. So for example my CH is £1.20 an hour and I put it on for 1 hour a day, if I want an extra hour I know exactly how much it is going to cost. But if you leave it thermostated it will be more random.

I tend to use the CH to heat the whole house to a tolerable/stop mould temperature, which for me is about 12-15 degrees C. I stick the CH on for an hour once per day at about 15:00 to maintain this. The 15:00 time is a good balance between making the living room/bedroom warmer at night, at the expense of having the home office where I work in the morning colder (but I get round this with the electric heater). I also dehumidify which makes the lower temperature a lot more tolerable/ less likely to help mould grow.

Where I am working/watching TV I tend to heat the room/person with either a small electric heater in the home office (about 200W is enough) or a heated throw in the lounge to bring the temperature up to 17-20C.

@GasPanic

the thing with doing it that way though, is that the first hour (or so) is the most expensive as it's trying to get up to temperature, once it's there, the following hours are cheaper. So you won't pay a huge amount more to have it on for a further couple of hours.

Yes. But ...

I don't need it on for those hours. Even if it was costing me 1/4 of the price (about 30p an hour) what would be the point when I can use the heated throw at 3p an hour and be fine ? I'd rather save the gas and have an extra hour full on when it gets really cold.

You also use comparitively much more gas at higher temperatures. My living room takes less time to fall from 20C to 17C than it does to go from 17C to 14C, probably at least twice as long. So I don't see the point in keeping it at that high temp when I don't need to.

I don't know how much it would cost to maintain my house at say 20C though. Obviously it depends on the outside temperature as well. I may experiment and try to find out !

Every house is different. But in general it is better to have it in only when you need it. Think of your house like an oven. Then think about whether it will be cheaper to leave the oven running at 220 all the time or cheaper to turn it on when you need to cook.

Just seen the gas bill for November use, £87.90. So not tropical but certainly not cold, and not a crazy price to pay imo.

im home a lot in the day, my gas comes on in the morning for 30 minutes and then at lunch time for 50 minutes and again in the evening for 60 minutes. I boost the heating to come on at 16 if it gets cold and heating is set at 17 when it comes on - when off its 13.5

my bill for gas was £31 for November

I’ve just done this exact experiment. It’s been bitterly cold here -6/7 most nights and I have a nest thermostat with cavity wall and loft insulation and double glazing, new boiler 2017.

the thermostat will flick to away when we leave for the day and won’t come back on till we come home and on those cold days it was dropping to 13.5 and then having to be on solidly for a couple of hours to get up to 17.

so yesterday I left the heating at 16 all day, the heating was on for 7 and 3/4 hours and yesterday only for 5 and 3/4 hours I can’t compare the prices on the smart meter from Friday to yesterday but if it was on for less time will it have been less money?