Heating - how do I keep the bills down?

[reddaisy]

Is it cheaper to have the heat on low constantly or one for a couple of hours in the morning and again for a couple of hours again in the evening to "heat the house through".

I always used to do the latter but have heard it could be cheaper to do the former.

Anyone know?

Have you got gas central heating?

Yes.

Assuming that during the day the outside temperature should be higher than during the hours of darkness. Then at this time of year it will probably be cheaper to switch off the gas during daylight hours.

Thanks for the advice Lucinda. I can't cope with bills like last winter! Doesn't help that DH now works from home.

We heat one room in the house during day (all other radiators switched off), so we can be there and work from home. Once dd comes home we heat the house more generally so she can play where she wants.

we have gas too, and we have our heating set at 16 all the time, it comes on first thing in the mornings mostly, when its coldest outside - we are fine with that, we turn off radiators in rooms not in use, spare room etc -

I also put heating on boost for tad some times to heat up to 17/18 when DD in bath, however, I cook lots and the house is well insulated (new biuld) so we retain a lot of heat.

You need to insulate your home to start with so that when you heat it up it stays warm for as long as possible. There are grants available for loft insulation, double-glazing etc. Have you got all of those?

Agree about keeping rooms you don't use much cooler, and turning off radiators or fitting thermostatically controlled radiator valves.
Turn down the thermostat for your hot water to 60 and set it to come on for a shorter time than your heating if you can.

Finally... invest in thermal underwear and fleecy slippers! Can't beat personal insulation. Good luck

Agree with previous posters, but be careful with turning down hot water thermostat to 60 because at that temperature you can get legionnaires and other bacteria growing. I can't recall what the 'officially recommended temperature' is but I thought it was 70, I keep my one on 75 because I am really worried about legionnaires given that we use lots of showers.

Leigionnaire's Disease cannot survive at 60C

Save money with hot water cylinder thermostat at 60C

Wearing more clothes can help. :)

In terms of reducing heating costs, if you have radiators put foil down the back to reflect the heat back into the room. Thick curtains also help.

Thanks for all the tips. We are renting so although the loft needs insulating I won't be paying for that!

Our curtains are very thin as well which doesn't help, but again I'm not paying for them.

I think we will heat downstairs during the day and put the upstairs radiators on later in the day.

I've got lots of layers already and DD doesn't seem to feel the cold too much in general so that's good.

I have the same problem daisy and I was wondering the same thing. I just have the heating on for as short a time as I can bear it in the morning and the evening but I wonder if it's better to have it on a lower temperature for longer rather than hot, short blasts.

We have a really drafty poorly insulated house (like you we're renting so can't do anything about insulating it). The bathroom seems colder than it does outdoors. I dread bathtime as much as DD does!

Rosa- Quite a few people in RL seem to think having it on low is cheaper but I'm still not convinced. I will let you know in the spring!