How cold does your house get?

[Merlot]

Ignoring the plethora of "how warm do you keep your house?" and the age old "central heating on 24x7 or evenings only debate" - how cold does your house get when you leave it for a period (a day when you're at work, overnight etc.?)

With outside temperatures now around -2c to -5c, my house will fall to a chilly 9-10c inside the house if left for a working day or indeed overnight. Is this exceptionally bad or do other people experience the same? The house has everything counting against it - sash windows, wood floors, no insulation etc!

[jeevescat]

Just been looking at this at home, ours drops to about 15˙C from a heated temperature of 19˙

Pretty good apart from our front door which needs a huge curtain across it.

[Mr GrimNasty]

I've left my stalled renovation unheated, I find it drops about a degree a day if the outside is consistently significantly colder. Currently reading 5C, last winter is never got below about 2C. Downside is the fridge stops working!

[Torquey]

I'm interested to know this too actually.

At the moment mine is about 15-16 degrees coming in from work at 6pm after being off for 9 hours

8am about 13-14 degrees after being off for 10 hours through the night.

What I'd like is device that records how long the boiler has been on for over a time period! Does such a device exist??
The thermostat keeps it from dropping below a certain temp but I'd like to know if the heating had to come on to keep it at that temp...

[Zeek]

Merlot said:

Ignoring the plethora of "how warm do you keep your house?" and the age old "central heating on 24x7 or evenings only debate" - how cold does your house get when you leave it for a period (a day when you're at work, overnight etc.?)

With outside temperatures now around -2c to -5c, my house will fall to a chilly 9-10c inside the house if left for a working day or indeed overnight. Is this exceptionally bad or do other people experience the same? The house has everything counting against it - sash windows, wood floors, no insulation etc!

Mine's like yours. Sash windows, lots of gaps, draughty doors, suspended wood floors etc. It will drop to 11 degrees if left unattended for the day, and 13 overnight, although that's without it being negative outside. It always feels colder inside, so I don't want to see how low it goes!

I've got a loft full of rolls of insulation, but haven't put it down yet. There's no ventilation up there, so I know as soon as I shove 30cm of insulation up there, I'm going to get condensation problems too!

[Merlot]

Zeek said:

Merlot said:

Ignoring the plethora of "how warm do you keep your house?" and the age old "central heating on 24x7 or evenings only debate" - how cold does your house get when you leave it for a period (a day when you're at work, overnight etc.?)

With outside temperatures now around -2c to -5c, my house will fall to a chilly 9-10c inside the house if left for a working day or indeed overnight. Is this exceptionally bad or do other people experience the same? The house has everything counting against it - sash windows, wood floors, no insulation etc!

Mine's like yours. Sash windows, lots of gaps, draughty doors, suspended wood floors etc. It will drop to 11 degrees if left unattended for the day, and 13 overnight, although that's without it being negative outside. It always feels colder inside, so I don't want to see how low it goes!

I've got a loft full of rolls of insulation, but haven't put it down yet. There's no ventilation up there, so I know as soon as I shove 30cm of insulation up there, I'm going to get condensation problems too!

Last year I went through the variety of ways to save money by insulating, I think we worked out in total we'd be looking at a couple of grand. Assuming a very optimistic 50% saving on our energy bills we'd be looking at a 10 year payback time!

Might as well continue to burn gas and when the installation of the wood-burner is finalised, wood and coal too!

[Zeek]

Merlot said:

Zeek said:

Merlot said:

Ignoring the plethora of "how warm do you keep your house?" and the age old "central heating on 24x7 or evenings only debate" - how cold does your house get when you leave it for a period (a day when you're at work, overnight etc.?)

With outside temperatures now around -2c to -5c, my house will fall to a chilly 9-10c inside the house if left for a working day or indeed overnight. Is this exceptionally bad or do other people experience the same? The house has everything counting against it - sash windows, wood floors, no insulation etc!

Mine's like yours. Sash windows, lots of gaps, draughty doors, suspended wood floors etc. It will drop to 11 degrees if left unattended for the day, and 13 overnight, although that's without it being negative outside. It always feels colder inside, so I don't want to see how low it goes!

I've got a loft full of rolls of insulation, but haven't put it down yet. There's no ventilation up there, so I know as soon as I shove 30cm of insulation up there, I'm going to get condensation problems too!

Last year I went through the variety of ways to save money by insulating, I think we worked out in total we'd be looking at a couple of grand. Assuming a very optimistic 50% saving on our energy bills we'd be looking at a 10 year payback time!

Might as well continue to burn gas and when the installation of the wood-burner is finalised, wood and coal too!

It gets pretty cold up on top of this hill. Last year I was burning huge amounts of oil. The boiler packed up, and a new one went in this year. Definitely noticing an improvement in efficiency so far, but without insulation, I'm just heating the Mid-Sussex hills. I'm working on draught exclusion now and underfloor insulation next summer. Not much I can do about the windows, except keep thick curtains closed

I've got a stove which I use during the day in winter because I work at home most of the time. Proper coal is much better than logs. Smaller, hotter and easier to move, that said, I think I'm going to buy some woodland as a log supply...

[T84]

Ours gets to about 10 degrees I think.

Only recently moved in with my girlfriend so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be setting my central heating, we currently have a timer that goes on 6.30am-9.30am and then from 4.30pm-midnight. We both work around 10-6.30 so it seems the best, feels a bit too long though? :|

[okgo]

I don't let ours get below 15 really, I like to be able to wear a t shirt inside.

[Simpo Two]

Forgive me for not participating in this experiment!

[Laurel Green]

Simpo Two said:

Forgive me for not participating in this experiment!

Don't blame you. Me neither, as I turn the stat down to 15 degrees overnight. Mind, am in throughout the day, so takes less energy to get it back up to a realistic temperature.

[Merlot]

T84 said:

Ours gets to about 10 degrees I think.

Only recently moved in with my girlfriend so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be setting my central heating, we currently have a timer that goes on 6.30am-9.30am and then from 4.30pm-midnight. We both work around 10-6.30 so it seems the best, feels a bit too long though? :

Mine costs me about 40p/hour to run, so that'd be £4.20/day for me or £125/month.

I suppose that isn't too bad bearing in mind that is probably only for 3-4 months a year, at the moment ours is on between about 6.30pm and 9.30pm only, this keeps it acceptable to about 10.30pm before it starts getting a bit chilly again. We go to bed earlyish and don't really notice. We grin and bear it in the morning (so far).

I am, however, a tightwad.

[Silver993tt]

Last winter my place was 4C in the upstairs bedrooms after about 3 weeks with the heating off during the cold snap.

[michaelfenton]

My sister is renting an apartment in Dublin (she's in college there), and being a typical student she got the cheapest available. Single-glazed windows, no insulation. Apparently there's ice inside the building, any water left outside of the fridge freezes! She's too stubborn to come home, pride is a dangerous thing!

[matts4]

Its always on at 22c with the underfloor heating on the ground floor, and when I go to bed I set it back to 18c for 4 hours (it hasn't actually fallen to that yet though in that 4 hour period)

I think it is more econmical to keep it running at constant temperature (especially wet underfloor heating anyway)

The rads are on a seperate programable thermostat upstairs, but the upstairs seems to remain fairly constant around 21c

[otherman]

If my missus has control of the thermostat its usually about 32 degrees C

[Merlot]

Zeek said:

but without insulation, I'm just heating the Mid-Sussex hills.

Between us, we're probably the cause of the lack of snow in Sussex

[bogie]

runs at about 20deg on the stat, and drops to 14-15deg after being out or asleep for 7 hours before it comes on again

[Zeek]

Merlot said:

Zeek said:

but without insulation, I'm just heating the Mid-Sussex hills.

Between us, we're probably the cause of the lack of snow in Sussex

Yeah, add my two chimneys pumping out heat in the evenings, and I'm not surprised it's just as warm outside as it is inside

[Si 330]

As we are waiting for the boiler repair man, as rather cold at the moment.