Heating "on" run by thermostat, or on timer??

[anonymousbird]

Have just moved into a house which has a central thermostat. Also has open fire, so the radiators in the sitting room are on minimum setting whilst I run the fire.

Am I better off (either comfort or money wise) to

a) leave it on, let the thermostat hold the temperature at 18 or so. I can easily turn this down for the day times when it is just me, I suppose.

b) put it on a timer to blast morning and evening and then do Extra Hour from time to time.....

I did a) over the weekend as we were all here, pretty much all the time.

But when it's just me during the week I don't mind it being a bit cooler in the day, so maybe b) is better. Or will that just mean my boiler has to work doubly hard and then actually use more energy when it fires up for the evening?

Many thanks.

We do a) all the time and don't have hideous bills at all. But then I cannot STAND being cold and turn into the grumpiest cow imaginable.

We have just had a friend who is also a plumber and eating engineer over to look at whether it is worth putting in some additional radiators and he told me that it is far better to have the heating on lower and longer than to have it blasting out the heat and then going cool again.

oops he is a heating engineer not an eating engineer (now that's a job I'd like !)

We have ours on a timer. It comes on for a couple of hours in a morning and same in an evening.

However, our boiler has a button you can press for the heating to come on in "advance" so when you press it, it comes on until the time it would turn off according to the timer. When I'm in all day I press said button so I'm warm. It's useful to have the timer programmed though for days when we're out.

I do a) when it is as cold as it is now, just turn the thermostat down overnight/if the house will be empty. Otherwise it just gets way too cold and takes ages to get warm again.

We do a) because;

1. The boiler is in the old outside toilet, so wouldn't want to go outside every time I needed to boost the heating,
2. The thermostat is in a cold spot in the hall, so is no good at maintaining the temp of the main bit of the house.

I think our gas bills were a bit scary last year, but turned out actually no worse than anyone else's!!

Our heating comes on at 7am, and goes off at 11pm but is also controlled by the thermostat in the hall. If I'm out at work during the day I turn the temperature down, just warm enough that the flat isn't freezing when we get in. I generally have it low-ish when it's just me, as it makes more sense to just shove a thick jumper on instead.

Thanks all.
I think that I will stick with a) and adjust the thermostat down a bit during the day when I am here on my own, and also overnight it can go down a degree or so.. at the moment, the thought of switching it off completely is scary!

I'm first up in the morning so if it feels a bit cool first thing I can simply turn the thermostat up...

Ooo, modern living this is, two forward, two back rooms modern, insulated, double glazed bungalow with fully controllable heating. Not even any flippin stairs to worry about. La-dee-bleedin da, me!

We do A.

We have a 24 hour thermostat and its on 17/18C during the day and 19C in the evenings.

During the night (11:00 - 6:00) we have it down to 12C and I can honestly say that I am not cold at night even when I pop to the loo