Have you put your heating on yet?

Have you put your heating on yet?

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Discussion

ashleyman

7,003 posts

101 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
B'stard Child said:
I heat twice a day 0630 to 0745 and 1500 to 2200 and currently doing 55 kW a day

If I heat from 0630 to 2200 with no set backs I'll do 60 to 65 so heating in two sessions and not when we are out of the house works out cheaper but it's not a huge saving
This is what I am experimenting with.

We usually heat 6-8 and then 3-9.

But I am trying 6-9 to see how much difference it makes as heating in 2 sessions by 2PM I am COLD, the house is cold and come 3 it takes a while to get back up to comfortable.

B'stard Child

28,613 posts

248 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
ashleyman said:
B'stard Child said:
I heat twice a day 0630 to 0745 and 1500 to 2200 and currently doing 55 kW a day

If I heat from 0630 to 2200 with no set backs I'll do 60 to 65 so heating in two sessions and not when we are out of the house works out cheaper but it's not a huge saving
This is what I am experimenting with.

We usually heat 6-8 and then 3-9.

But I am trying 6-9 to see how much difference it makes as heating in 2 sessions by 2PM I am COLD, the house is cold and come 3 it takes a while to get back up to comfortable.
That's the balance point - two heat ups from cold chew through the gas - is it better to have one heat up and then a constant trickle all day with some setbacks in rooms not used and then a much quicker reheat for the evening........

Sheepshanks

33,213 posts

121 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
B'stard Child said:
UTH said:
It has now hit the temp outside where my UFH can't hit the set temp frown
Kitchen is hovering around 17.5 with a target of 19, even the living room is about 19.5 aiming for 20.

Hoping this cold snap doesn't last too long.
Thing is I'd find those temps *comfortable??

(*provided the room is draft free)
Our house seemed to take a lot of warming up this morning vs other mornings - even after the heating being on for 90 mins it was still only 16C in our bedroom and I really feel the cold. No idea why it was so bad, every way I could check the outside temp shows it showed +1C, although it was quite frosty this morning.

Have to be up earlyish tomorrow and I'm thinking of just leaving the heating on.

UTH

9,072 posts

180 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
B'stard Child said:
UTH said:
It has now hit the temp outside where my UFH can't hit the set temp frown
Kitchen is hovering around 17.5 with a target of 19, even the living room is about 19.5 aiming for 20.

Hoping this cold snap doesn't last too long.
Thing is I'd find those temps *comfortable??

(*provided the room is draft free)
Our house seemed to take a lot of warming up this morning vs other mornings - even after the heating being on for 90 mins it was still only 16C in our bedroom and I really feel the cold. No idea why it was so bad, every way I could check the outside temp shows it showed +1C, although it was quite frosty this morning.

Have to be up earlyish tomorrow and I'm thinking of just leaving the heating on.
My whole downstairs is UFH and has been left on 24/7 since about October, so the struggle to hit the set temp is just because it's too cold outside vs this rather poorly insulated house frown

Hoofy

76,684 posts

284 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
B'stard Child said:
Are people in the house all day? (AKA WFH)
Yes, WFH and 11C in my office. A hot water bottle helps a lot. As does exercise.

Hoofy

76,684 posts

284 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
Scabutz said:
biggiles said:
Hoofy said:
Scabutz said:
Recently moved into a rental. The master bedroom gets pretty parky at night. House is about 25 years old, probably no cavity fill, and little loft insulation. Windows are DB, but tiny air gap, they are crap. Also they are quite large.

Once I am in bed its ok as I have big thick duvet, but if I turn in the night the rest of the bed is cold and the air temp is pretty bad on anything exposed.

I have an oil filled radiator I put on 20 mins before I go to bed which warms it up nicely to get ready. Wonder what I can for the middle of the night early morning. Dont want to heat the whole house, its just me here. What would be best? Plug the oil radiator into a Tapo and then ask Alexa to turn it on for 20 mins if I wake up cold? Heated sheet, on Alexa? Guess an advanced way would be to have a temp sensor and have Alexa or something top up the temp with the rad automatically when it drops to a certain level? Assume a Tapo plug is ok with something drawing that much power, its still on a 13A plug
Jump out, flick oil rad on, jump back in?

Also, if you want a quick burst of heat, a fan heater is a better bet. Oil rads work better for longer periods because of how they work... I think?
Electric sheet (aka electric blanket) will be the most efficient by far for keeping a bed warm - you can set it to a low setting for the whole night if it's that cold.
So last night I left the oil radiator on all night, but put the heat setting to the lowest and set the built in thermostat low. That clicked on and off all night and kept the room at a comfortable cool temperature. According to my smart meter data it cost me about 40p so happy with that. I like the bedroom cool anyway but before it was getting so cold it was waking me up. Last night I slept for a solid 7.5 hours so all good.

If it stays cold I might think about a heated sheet. Even just to warm the bed up before hoping in as it will be nicer. Problem is i have a super in bed and just me in it so the sheets cost more and will be heating a half empty bed.
Well, buy one sized for a single bed OR buy a heating pad. https://amzn.to/41Rcui6

Sheepshanks

33,213 posts

121 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
UTH said:
My whole downstairs is UFH and has been left on 24/7 since about October, so the struggle to hit the set temp is just because it's too cold outside vs this rather poorly insulated house frown
Well, it's currently not that cold. Your fundamental problem is not enough heat is being put in to the house.

Our house gets to set temp - it's just that today it's taken a long time.

UTH

9,072 posts

180 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
UTH said:
My whole downstairs is UFH and has been left on 24/7 since about October, so the struggle to hit the set temp is just because it's too cold outside vs this rather poorly insulated house frown
Well, it's currently not that cold. Your fundamental problem is not enough heat is being put in to the house.

Our house gets to set temp - it's just that today it's taken a long time.
Well, having said this, the living room in now 20, kitchen is 18.5 and hallway is 19.8, so pretty much there. Thing is with it being on 24/7 I'm not sure why it's taken to nearly 5pm to get there, as it will have been working all night too.
Oh well, I know this place isn't well insulated so I can't complain too much. Just hope it doesn't drop to minus 10 outside!

RoadToad84

687 posts

36 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
Our house seemed to take a lot of warming up this morning vs other mornings - even after the heating being on for 90 mins it was still only 16C in our bedroom and I really feel the cold. No idea why it was so bad, every way I could check the outside temp shows it showed +1C, although it was quite frosty this morning.

Have to be up earlyish tomorrow and I'm thinking of just leaving the heating on.
Mine has been colder than usual the last few days. I'm putting it down to the wind direction. Usually a prevailing SW wind, and I'm attached to next door on the SW flank. Lately a NE wind, flank wall is getting constantly chilled.

ukwill

8,938 posts

209 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
UTH said:
Well, having said this, the living room in now 20, kitchen is 18.5 and hallway is 19.8, so pretty much there. Thing is with it being on 24/7 I'm not sure why it's taken to nearly 5pm to get there, as it will have been working all night too.
Oh well, I know this place isn't well insulated so I can't complain too much. Just hope it doesn't drop to minus 10 outside!
I feel for your issues with ufh - we've the same issue in our lounge - in our case it's due to a combination of being a single level and next to no underfloor insulation. As such, I typically run the gas "woodburner" fire on low (low = 3.5kw iirc) from about 5pm until around 8.30-9. This means the ufh doesnt bother coming on as the room stat quickly gets above 18.5 (typically it gets down to about 16 without the heating on). Doing this means the UFH isn't struggling (for hours) to reach the room stat 18.5 temp. Sure, it means the floor isn't warm, but then it's an engineered wood floor so not the best conductor of heat anyway.

Are you able to do anything about the insulation (walls/floors/roof)?

B'stard Child

28,613 posts

248 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
B'stard Child said:
A500leroy said:
11.5 0c at mine today, set for 15.5.

Have it set for 3 equally spaced 2 hour blasts over 24 hours. Is that wrong?
It works for you - there is no wrong or right

Are people in the house all day? (AKA WFH)

I heat twice a day 0630 to 0745 and 1500 to 2200 and currently doing 55 kW a day

If I heat from 0630 to 2200 with no set backs I'll do 60 to 65 so heating in two sessions and not when we are out of the house works out cheaper but it's not a huge saving

Experiment and see what works best
I haven't got the HDD data till tomorrow but Tuesday felt very similar to Wednesday

Tuesday - heating was on twice a day 0630 to 0745 and 1500 to 2200 and did 53.5 kW in the day (ex HW reqts) & was 4.01 kW per HDD (A little over my baseline target of 3.68)

Wednesday - heating was on from 0630 to 2200 with a 1 deg setback on most rooms did 51.5 kW in the day (ex HW reqts) & Was 4.06 kW per HDD (Again a little over my baseline target of 3.68)

I'll do the same again Thursday but I'll tweak the setback temps a little more.

Edited to add kW/HDD data




Edited by B'stard Child on Thursday 11th January 09:09

usn90

1,470 posts

72 months

Wednesday 10th January
quotequote all
we’ve just purchased a good quality, heated fitted bed sheet, my word what a difference, only issue is getting out of bed now

gotoPzero

17,467 posts

191 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
One of my things to do when I get chance is to fill the void under our kitchen cabinets with insulation.

Anyone else done this?

We had the base boards off to clean them at the end of summer and there was quite a draft coming from under there.


Defcon5

6,213 posts

193 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
I have heard that that makes a noticeable difference

Also on my to do list. I assume you just shove some rock wool in the gap

soupdragon1

4,207 posts

99 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
Anecdotal story. We built our house just 9 years ago and didn't take the option of UFH, choosing rads instead. That was based of my sister's experience, where she had to get a duel fuel stove in her kitchen/diner/lounge living space. She said it just never felt warm enough in winter. Hers was a new build too, a couple of years earlier.

I don't know much about UFH to be honest, but it was enough to put me off and go with rads.

mikey_b

1,917 posts

47 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
gotoPzero said:
One of my things to do when I get chance is to fill the void under our kitchen cabinets with insulation.

Anyone else done this?

We had the base boards off to clean them at the end of summer and there was quite a draft coming from under there.
Would it not be better to try and properly seal up the gaps that cause the draft? There must be holes and gaps (probably around waste pipes, or at the point where wall meets floor) that are allowing large quantities of outside air in behind the cupboards.

Trustmeimadoctor

12,800 posts

157 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
If just needs to be designed properly same as using radiators but rads are easier to stick up and get by with as they can run Higher water temps than ufh
Also people need to get used to how different heating feels different. Imho if your feeling hot the heating is too hot. People think rads should be hot to the touch they don't need to be to still heat effectively

AceRockatansky

2,177 posts

29 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
usn90 said:
we’ve just purchased a good quality, heated fitted bed sheet, my word what a difference, only issue is getting out of bed now
Had those, what you need is a heated blanket, much better being wrapped in the heat and you can take it to the couch. I bought my wife one first, then myself and now the daughters have them as everyone was fighting over them! hehe

These are the best so far

https://www.costco.co.uk/Furniture-Mattresses/Home...

UTH

9,072 posts

180 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
gotoPzero said:
One of my things to do when I get chance is to fill the void under our kitchen cabinets with insulation.

Anyone else done this?

We had the base boards off to clean them at the end of summer and there was quite a draft coming from under there.
This sounds like a good idea, any reason I shouldn't do this? I've got plenty of rock wool left over.....

UTH

9,072 posts

180 months

Thursday 11th January
quotequote all
ukwill said:
I feel for your issues with ufh - we've the same issue in our lounge - in our case it's due to a combination of being a single level and next to no underfloor insulation. As such, I typically run the gas "woodburner" fire on low (low = 3.5kw iirc) from about 5pm until around 8.30-9. This means the ufh doesnt bother coming on as the room stat quickly gets above 18.5 (typically it gets down to about 16 without the heating on). Doing this means the UFH isn't struggling (for hours) to reach the room stat 18.5 temp. Sure, it means the floor isn't warm, but then it's an engineered wood floor so not the best conductor of heat anyway.

Are you able to do anything about the insulation (walls/floors/roof)?
I chucked a load of rock wool in my loft last year - not a very professional job, but there's certainly a lot up there.

Floors - I WISH I'd insulated under the bedroom floorboards when we had the carpets up for renovation in 2020, such a mistake. As for insulating the walls, I'm not really sure how that's done, I think I need a pro to come and assess my house really.