Can someone please explain thermostats to me?

[Bubblebloodypop]

Prepare yourselves for some stupid questions...

So since we moved in to our house we had the thermostat set to 30 but only turned the heating on when we really needed it for an hour.

I thought the thermostat set the temperature of the radiators but I'm gathering that I'm wrong about that. From what I can understand if I set it at 20 then the heating would come on if the temp was below 20 and then back on when it reached that right? How does it know the temperature? Is the thermometer in the boiler because that's in an outhouse so a lot colder than inside. Also, when the thermostat clicks as I turn it, what does that mean? thanks.

Yes they have a thermometer in them. If you have the thermostat set at 20, for example, the heating will come on when the temperature in that room falls below 20, and once it gets back up to 20 it'll turn off again. If the room temperature is 25 and you turn the knob/press the button up, you'll hear a click when you turn it past 25 as it switches the heating on at that point.

It couldn't possibly mean the temperature of the radiators as a 20 or 30 degree radiator wouldn't heat a room up at all! Usually the water would be over 60 degrees I believe although I'm not a heating engineer!

One thing worth remembering is that it only detects the temperature right there where the thermostat is based. So if your thermostat is in a cold drafty hallway with no radiator nearby, and you set it to 25, the hallway might never reach 25, meanwhile your heating will be on full blast and it might be 33 degrees in your living room! Likewise, if that thermostat is in a nice warm living room by a sunny window, it'll think the temperature is already 25, so the heating won't come on, meanwhile your bedroom or bathroom might be sinking down to 17 degrees...

The thermostat clicks at about 12 so that means my hallway is 12 degrees. No wonder I'm cold. It's warmer outside than that. Thank you for your answer.

I like this thread. I've never really understood them either OP, and I am educated to post degree level!!
In this house I don't have a thermostat. I'm even more confused as to how to keep my house an even temperature!

Dontyou I'm glad I'm not the only one hopefully someone will come along with some advice for you.

Our old house didn't have a thermostat - I just set the heating to come on for half an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening or thereabouts (lots of fiddling with times required to find the right balance, and depended on the weather of course). With a thermostat, you set the heating to come on at certain times (or you could leave it on all the time) but it will not fire up the radiators if the temp in the house is higher than what your thermostat is set at.

Hope this helps a bit (I'm not a heating engineer, as you can tell!)

The thermostat means that you maintain a certain temperature in your home ie 20c. If it drops below that, your heating comes on. When it reaches that temperature, it then maintains it. The thermostat contains the thermometer so it measures the temperature around it, not the boiler.

"In this house I don't have a thermostat. I'm even more confused as to how to keep my house an even temperature!"

I don't see how that can be done easily without a thermostat. I imagine that whatever you use to heat your home will reach an optimum temperature at some point, but without a thermostat there is no way of measuring it.

You must have a very old heating system or no central heating. I thought all modern heating systems had thermostats these days.

We don't have a thermostat - we set the boiler level in between minimum and maximum depending on the outside temperature, then have the radiator valves set to fully open downstairs and on level 3 upstairs. You control the boiler levels initially, so minimum for autumn/spring and higher for winter and then individual rooms with the thermostatic valves. (My dad is a heating engineer!).

Just twirled my thermostat to hear the click... never even noticed it before