Heating on all day?

[AndStilliRise]

Googling gives different answers however would anyone know if it is cheaper to leave the heating on all day, not during the night, as apposed to heating the house when occupied i.e. after school/work?

[BoRED S2upid]

It’s discussed every winter and is about as varied as google! If your house is well insulated you won’t need much heat that’s where I’d start.

[HootersGsy]

On a pure numbers basis, it's going to be more expensive running all day. But, in our house it takes a long time to respond to the heating coming on so if we turn it off during the day it tends to get whacked up to a higher temp in the evening because the fabric of the building is sucking all of the heat and making it feel colder than it is. This means for me, leaving it on 24/7 (but a couple of degrees lower in the day), is cheaper overall. YMMV.

[TLandCruiser]

I use to turn mine on when I got home, and it spent all evening trying to warm the house up, solid walls etc

Now I have a digital thermostat that keeps set temperatures throughout the day and it's much better....during the day the heating hardly comes on just to top it off, then as the evening approaches the set temperature rises.

How much more efficient this is, I don't know...but it's certainly nicer to always have a warm house...well, I like it around 19 in the evening.

[PF62]

AndStilliRise said:

Googling gives different answers however would anyone know if it is cheaper to leave the heating on all day, not during the night, as apposed to heating the house when occupied i.e. after school/work?

Cheaper - No
More comfortable - Yes

Middle ground is not to let the house get too cold during the day so it takes all evening to heat up.

Combine this with a digital thermostat such as the Honeywell CM range which has an 'optimum start' facility where it anticipates what time to turn the heating on to reach the desired temperature for the time you specified and you can end up with the best of both.

[Alucidnation]

365 weather comp.

Gas bill massively reduced.

Lovely warm house.

[227bhp]

I just set the timer so it comes on an hour before I get home, you've got problems if your house doesn't heat up in that amount of time.

[Phil.]

Alucidnation said:

365 weather comp.

What’s that?

[crossy67]

We left our heating on low all day for the last couple of years we lived in the UK. We were expecting huge heating bills but there was no noticeable increase. Why not tr for your self for a 1/4?

[GetCarter]

GSHP Heating on all year for the past 11 years. Never turned off.

Saved me a fortune.

[carreauchompeur]

Not sure about my bills however the programmer has set time/temp programmes so I tend to have it set around 15deg during the day and 19 in the morning/evenings which seems to work reasonably well. Definitely better than letting it get stone cold during the day.

[jmorgan]

Keep mine on all day. Runs about the same or cheaper.

1998 build, seems well insulated, double glazing etc. condensing boiler. Usually running best temperature for most efficient burn. Thermostat timing runs on temperature so to speak.

[Alucidnation]

Phil. said:

Alucidnation said:

365 weather comp.

What’s that?

Our heating is left on all year and the boiler is weather compensated.

The boiler heats up depending on how cold it is outside

[BoRED S2upid]

carreauchompeur said:

Not sure about my bills however the programmer has set time/temp programmes so I tend to have it set around 15deg during the day and 19 in the morning/evenings which seems to work reasonably well. Definitely better than letting it get stone cold during the day.

That’s the thing. If your house is well insulated it won’t get stone cold. Ours comes on for an hour in the morning and in the evening I work from home and it maintains a decent temperature all day just needs a quick top up early evening.

[AndStilliRise]

How do I know if my house is well insulated?

For the record, it does get cold, quick.

[jmorgan]

Mine is reasonably warm but it will go cold over the day. It is brick and thermal block and plasterboard on battens (second mini cavity). No cavity wall insulation and the pre requisite attic insulation, though another layer will probably help. Suffice to say that on a really frosty day or snow, my roof does not show any warm patches until the sun gets at it with the central heating on.

My boiler is a condensing boiler so runs at around 50-55 deg C on the return as I understand that is the best for the boiler being most efficient. Rather than the 60-70 it was set at.

[PositronicRay]

We went from 6.30-8am + 16.30-22.30pm to 6.30am-22.30pm. I've not noticed any difference in bills.

[durbster]

AndStilliRise said:

How do I know if my house is well insulated?

For the record, it does get cold, quick.

That would suggest it's not well insulated.

[megaphone]

AndStilliRise said:

How do I know if my house is well insulated?

For the record, it does get cold, quick.

Look in the loft. Does it have cavity walls and are they filled? Double glazing and doors?

[PDP76]

I’ve done it in the past. The key is to trickle heat out. All my raids have trvs so I can zone each room off. Unused rooms down to 2. Used rooms on 3. When a room is no longer in use back down to 2. Room back in use up it to 3.
I found it was cheaper to do this than have 2/3 full burns a day.
More so I did this over the bad winter we had when it was -10/15 in the day and upto -20 at night. Boilers were freezing up all over. Mine didn’t, and it’s in the loft.
At the moment it’s on timers. When the temp drops off properly I’ll run it 24/7 zoning off rooms accordingly.