24 hours central heating

[pinkr]

My dh says its more cost effective to have the heating on 24 hours a day rather than in the morning and evening...does anyone know if this if correct? We live rurally,.have a ten week old baby and our bedroom was 11 degrees the other morning which I think its too cold for baby. His solution is constant low heat...will be watching the meter carefully.

no.

Heat tends to travel fromn a hotter object (e.g. the inside of your house) to a cooler object (e.g. the rest of the world)

The amount of heat lost is directly proportional to the temperature difference, and to time.

So heating it for 24 hours, more heat will be lost than heating it for the period you are at home and not in bed.

There will be a delay between starting the heat and the house being warm; and between the heat going off and the house being cold. This is usually managed by setting the timer to "on" and to "off" to half an hour or so before the time you require the house to be warm or not warm.

Good insulation alters the rate of loss, but not the proportionality of time and temperature to loss.

You might consider a Programmable Room Thermostat which can maintain the night temperature at e.g. 15C and the day temperature at say 18C and the evening temperature at say 20C. They can also have different temperatures for different days of the week, e.g. days when you are home all day and days when you are out.

Do you mean the heating on but the thermostat set low? We do this.

Our heating is switched onto 'constant' but the thermostat is set at 15 so hardly ever clicks on (at the moment) but PigletJohn, are you saying that this going to cost more than having the CH programmed to come on to heat up to say 20 degrees for two hours in the morning and again in the evening?

No, the advice given in a recent BBC article said:

14. Setting timers on heating is important. "It's a myth that keeping it on all day is better," says Luthra. If it's very cold, the timer should be set to switch the heating on earlier, rather than turning the thermostat up to warm the house rapidly, according to Age UK.

Full article here

Hi frank! Will have a read. Yes I mean just having the radiators on the first level all the time...seems to keep a steady 18 degrees. I don't mind the cold but I worry about baby!

pigletjohn do you think it'll be much more expensive? I don't mind a bit more as obviously my babies comfort comes first but I don't want to double our bills! !

We've got round this by getting an oil filled radiator. It's thermostatic so it only kicks in when the temperature drops below whatever it's set at. That's in Faithlet's room. Otherwise we have the heating on morning and evening and I pop the electric fire on in the living room if needs be.

Oh that might be an option...we have one of those up the loft from my old flat,

Works a treat just to keep the chill off the room.

Gah, I'm going to have to start fiddling with that NASA-ish control panel in the airing cupboard aren't I?

I think the story about keeping your heating on all day must have been invented by the energy companies.

Don't forget, if its your bedroom you need to heat, switch off all the other radiators and close the door.