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Author: Subject: Best way to heat a house
greggors84

posted on 25/1/11 at 10:53 PM Reply With Quote
Best way to heat a house

Since I installed a thermostat into the central heating I have been wondering which is the best (most efficient) way to heat my house.

I have a thermostat in the living room with a timer so you can set what temperature the boiler will kick in at certain times in the day. There is also a control on the boiler than monitors the temperature of the water coming back to the boiler and if it is above the setting it wont fire up (like most combis). Finally there are thermostatic valves on the radiators.

What is the best combination? Keep the rad valves fully open and boiler on max to get the house up to temp quickly, keep the valves open but turn the boiler down so its not always firing, or one of the many other combinations.

I don't pay much for my gas and electricity at the moment but to be honest I find it hard to keep the house feeling warm. I put it down to the very cold winter we had before Christmas.





Chris

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daniel mason

posted on 25/1/11 at 11:02 PM Reply With Quote
you dont want the boiler turned up to max on the c/h system. depending on your rads i would say 70 degrees would be fine. the built in timer i would turn off and just use the heating as and when you need it,controlled by the room stat. thats what i do anyway






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Andi

posted on 25/1/11 at 11:18 PM Reply With Quote
Probably not much help but, we use a log burner with a back boiler that feeds the hot water and radiators. We also have thestandard GSH set up but just fire that up if we want instant hot bath water or while we wait for the log fire to get going.
£800 for the initial set up plus £200 for a hydraulic log splitter, but free wood from the council parks dept and our last gas bill was £15 per Qtr.

Pay for itself in no time.

Andi

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greggors84

posted on 25/1/11 at 11:33 PM Reply With Quote
I must be a bit soft as I like the house to be slightly warm when I wake up. I like the idea of the log burner though.





Chris

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dhutch

posted on 25/1/11 at 11:43 PM Reply With Quote
Also interested in this, thought a lot about it but never really know any answers.

Particularly for a house where everyone works during the day so is empty 8till6 every day and has a lot of shared living/sleeping areas.

Currently we have the boiler temp around mid (160deg) , timer set to come on at 5, off at 8, on at four, off at ten.
Using thermostat valves on rads to balance out individual room temps and ignoring the poorly located main thermostat.

But then again, its rented accoms and we don't pay the bills.


Daniel

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greggors84

posted on 26/1/11 at 12:17 AM Reply With Quote
That's pretty similar to my house. I fitted a thermostat before the winter thinking it would help as most of the time we are all in the living room, so as long as that room was warm then there was so point the heating being on any more. Haven't really been able to tell if it made any difference as the winter has been so much colder than the last so far.

My gas and elec bills seem to be pretty cheap, but all 3 of us spend a lot of the time away with work and the house is empty most of Jan so the heating just keeps it above 5 degrees.





Chris

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coyoteboy

posted on 26/1/11 at 12:52 AM Reply With Quote
Radiators are more effective at higher temps, but (condensing) boilers more efficient at lower temps (they rely on the return temp of the rads being <55C to condense and so regain lost energy). So the most efficient way is to have low rad temps, but it'll be slow to warm up for your evening temp. Either way, the most efficient way is to have it cooling during the day and night and coming back on in the evening. Our lowest gas use seems to come from about 2 out of 6 on the rad outlet temp. However when it was -20 outside that was unable to get the house above 18C, so I bumped it up to full temp.

At the end of the day you need to remember the above about efficiency (if you don't have a condensing boiler you don't need the return temp <55), and you need to remember that heat loss depends on insulation and temp difference across the walls. Time to heat up and cool down depends on thermal mass in the house and radiator size and temp.

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coozer

posted on 26/1/11 at 05:23 AM Reply With Quote
Last year we had the CH turned half way up to keep warm.

For this winter we installed a logburner, room heater only no hot water but its a lot more efficient than the old gas fire and the CH has been on the bottom notch all through the recent cold weather.

Muttly really appreciates it as well





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designer

posted on 26/1/11 at 06:06 AM Reply With Quote
With a boiler that monitors the water return temperature you a timer, not a wall mounted thermostat. These boilers use thermostatic valves on all radiators, then each room controls itself.
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big-vee-twin

posted on 26/1/11 at 08:33 AM Reply With Quote
Wind down the water temperature to allow the boiler to condense if it is a condensing type. Dont go below 60 degrees or you will run into legionella problems in your hot water cylinder.

Wind your main thermostat down in stages over a few days until you reach the lowest setting your comfortable with, for the whole house. Remember that 1 dergree less is 10% off your bill!

Adjust each thermostatic rad valve down until you find the most comfortable temperature for each individual room.





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MikeFellows

posted on 26/1/11 at 08:47 AM Reply With Quote
Ive wondered about this too.

in my opinion there are 2 thoughts on the matter...

1. leave heating on all day controlled by the thermostat, this stops the boiler having to work overtime trying to heat the house at set times of day, using individual rad thermostats to regulate individual room temp (and turn unused rooms off, such as spare rooms)

2. use timer to set heating only when in the house, this stops you heating the home when nobody is in, but causes the boiler to work overtime at set times of day again still using rad thermostats to control individual room temp.

I would love to know which one is more efficient, I get different answers from different heating engineers.






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SeaBass

posted on 26/1/11 at 08:50 AM Reply With Quote
Fitted this to our house;

Honeywell CM927 Wireless 7 Day Room Stat

It made a huge difference. Boiler is set at 3/4 max on the low flame setting and it never achieves this.
The thermostat learns about the heat output the system delivers and tailors the on off cycle of the boiler.

It's set to 16 during the day 18 over night and 19 when we are in. Our fuel bills have been reduced and the house feels much cosier. Each room can still be adjusted using the TRVs.

Next summer I'm going to install a tank stat so we don't overheat hot water.

JC

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hughpinder

posted on 26/1/11 at 09:28 AM Reply With Quote
Many years (20) ago my Dad did an OU maths degree jsut for the interest. They had to come up with a mathematical modelling project as the final assessed part of the course, and he chose to do one focusing on the most efficient way to heat a house - boiler on and off at certain times, thermostatic valves, boiler runing all the time on low etc. (this was before condensing boilers were comon though). The model allowed for different rooms at different temperatures, and covered a variety of domestic building sizes and boiler types/efficiencies. It also covered a selection of building styles and levels of insulation. The conclusion:

Run your boiler for a few hours twice a day with thermostatic control on the individual radiators, but turn the stats up and down as you use the rooms IF the outside temperature was above a certain value. If the temperature was below this value run the boiler continuously at a low setting and adjust the thermostats as before. The surprising thing was that the switching temperature between these two options was between 6 and 8 degrees in practically every case.

Regards
Hugh

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MikeFellows

posted on 26/1/11 at 09:50 AM Reply With Quote
hmmmm...

so basically I want a new thermostat that can do the following.

1. read outside temp
2. be able to adjust the internal temp based upon external temp (would need to program some sort of matrix as i dont want it to be 25 degrees outside and 35 in my house)
3. it should have a button on it for when someone is in the house and when someone leaves the house
4. from the above data it should 'learn' our patterns

I should then set my boiler to the lowest setting and adjust with thermostatic valves?

I bet nobody makes on of these.


also if i was to redo all my plumbing without doubt I would ditch the TRV and zone each room instead with its own thermostat






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MikeFellows

posted on 26/1/11 at 09:55 AM Reply With Quote
I just found....

Worcester FW100 Weather Compensation Controller

that must save some money straight away, doesnt do my clever programming thing though.






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Marcus

posted on 26/1/11 at 08:48 PM Reply With Quote
Get rid of all those radiators and fit underfloor heating

Ok so that's not a cheap option (unless you work for the company that makes it (which I do)) but it seems to be the most comfortable.





Marcus


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Moorron

posted on 26/1/11 at 09:21 PM Reply With Quote
A friend who was doing a degree had been set a task of seeing which was better and cheaper when heating a house. The conclusion was its best to leave it all on, but controlled by the stat in the hall (or living area).

We first use to have it on a timer, so it was warm in the morning when we got up and also warm when we came home from work, but now its left on all the time, but set at 11 degrees (when she hasnt turned it upto 18!). Its a combi boiler in a small 2 bed.

We never use the gas fire either and with no radiator in the living area as it was moved to the conservatory it seems ok most of the time, i feel that wooden floors seem to be the main problem as my feet get cold quickly.

ps, i wear woolen socks over my norm sock in the winter round the house but found that a newly cleaned wooden floor and woolen socks dont mix, i went comedy stile arse over tit the other day (feet above head) and ripped the door off its hinges trying to stop it. Really knocked the wind out of me too, but i was trying to laff it off and trying to breath.





Sorry about my spelling, im an engineer and only work in numbers.

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Jasper

posted on 28/1/11 at 10:11 AM Reply With Quote
Just a small point I'm sure you've already realised. Make sure your thermostat is in the room you use most and want the warmest - not the hall. And make sure your rad valves in the main living room are fully open all the time so the thermostat controls them. Then set the temp in the other rooms with their rad valves.

We have ours set to a minimum of 16 degs, apparently it cost more to heat a house if you don't keep it to this sort of minimum temp. We've also found in the very cold weather it can take a few hours to bring it up from 16 deg to the 21 we like in our living room so use a small electric fire to boost it up quicker.





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hobbsy

posted on 28/1/11 at 10:47 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by SeaBass
Fitted this to our house;

Honeywell CM927 Wireless 7 Day Room Stat

JC


I fitted the exact same unit a few months ago as even though the boiler (combi but not condensing) was fitted not all that long ago (2003/2004 I believe) it only monitoring the return temp from the rad's and only has a fairly rubbish mechanical timer. Although we do have TRV's on all the rads.

Put this in and let it to all the control - break wire loop in control panel of boiler and connect the RF receiver output to this then turn the mech. timer to always on.

As JC said above it does learn and if you want you can tell it to *achieve* the desired temp at a certain time rather than aim for it (e.g. I want 20deg when I put my foot out of bed at 7am not to switch on and aim for 20degC at 6:30 say). This way it works out how early it needs to come on ahead of time based on how cold it is and how quick your system is to heat the house.

Handy being able to move it to where you are sitting as well. We have an open fire in the lounge so when that is roaring away the central heating can turn down / off as appropriate.

Gotta dig the holiday / day-off / and "party" modes as well

The holiday mode as the potential to save you the most - i.e. away for 14 days, you can programme when you leave so it only keeps the min temp (10deg C on mine) until the day you get back so you don't waste money nor come back to a freezing house.

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Jasper

posted on 28/1/11 at 11:08 AM Reply With Quote
That Honeywell one looks excellent.

My local plumbers merchant has it in stock, so I'm gonna connect it up before I go away - cheers chaps

[Edited on 28/1/11 by Jasper]





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