Amazing! ...if only you hadn't quit Facebook in January aaaaaa (This is not a complaint, it's great that you guys are offering that. I'll just have to convince the missus to join lol)
Hi Adam in all your video you never mention to get the power you need for your air sorse heating from your solar panel and battery storage please can you let me know why
That is a superb explanation of how to operate our central heating. I have been keeping our room stat at 17oC all night & most of the day, (we are retired & at home constantly). I have been really worried that we were using far more gas than we needed to. But when the heating has been off for 8 or 12 hours, it takes forever for the house to warm up so I have felt that that was too costly so it's nice to hear that you agree. We are lucky to have a well insulated house & a year old combi boiler, our old one had been installed in 1984 when the house was built, but packed up last Christmas. The new one stopped a week ago because of the big freeze, but the condensing outlet had got frozen at the bottom bend. I had to start near the roof with a hairdryer until it had all melted. Added some insulation around the pipe & got rid of the 90o bend at the bottom & all is good now. Very scary being up a ladder to use the hair drier at 80 years old, but our plumber was too busy with emergency call outs. Thanks for an interesting video.
YesI found this to be the case too, having a smart meter allows me to experiment with these issues, I found by leaving my thermo at 15c 24-7 I use less gas than turning it off during the night, I found that the boiler has to work harder for a longtime to raise the temperature to the desired temp in the morning, which costs more in gas to raise the temp back to where it should be compared to allowing the boiler to cutin during the night, plus the structure of the house never drops either helping to maintain a steady heat.
I have only recently started to look into heat pumps, your videos are so clear and informative, they should be subsidised by the government. Simply amazing!
But from the figures given they are expensive to install, ugly radiators and expensive to run if the house is empty until 18.00 every night so it has to be heating an empty house 16 hours a day.
Entirely agree. I’ve spent so much time trying to educate friends & family that a consistent, low heat where you just adjust the target temperature during night, day & perhaps evening if you want to comfortably relax is the way to go. When we bought our last house, we had prepayment meters for a while which were obviously awful, but gave me great awareness how much we were spending. Even though I was naive to the flow rate at that point, the constant temperature targets worked a treat. Another level again since I belatedly cottoned on to the flow rate a few years ago…
excellent, describes my situation to a T! Had a 30 year old boiler changed to a Valliant condensing boiler. Amazed at the difference, but getting a new boiler didnt take into account the 30 year old TRVs. Your explanation of the improvements with heating all the time, (retired in bungalow with solid brick walls) almost decribes me peffectly. thank you. very professionally explained.
Hurrah! At last I have found someone explaining and SHOWING how to use the controls on my Air Source Heat Pump. I am pleased I got an AHSP, I just wish the manufacturers instructions were as helpful and as clear as these videos Congratulations Heat Geeks! This is exactly what I have been looking for since I had the system installed.
I've taken a different approach. We live in South Australia and the winters here are mild (we don't get snow), but still cold. Our house is double brick, with lots of insulation in the roof and triple glazed windows. We have a large solar array on the roof. I considered batteries, but our main use of power is heating in the winter and so we have 3 Heat Banks. A Heat Bank is a simple device. An electric element is surrounded by a thermal mass (Magnesite bricks). 2 of our Heat Banks are charged during the day by the solar array and give up their latent heat during the evening. The third (largest) heat bank is charged during the night using off peak power and gives up stored heat during the day. The hot water system is a Heat Pump run on a timer, so it only runs during the day when the solar panels are generating power and we only run the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer during the day. The system has worked well for us.
Your 'heat banks' sound extremely similar to our (UK) older 'storage heater', stores heat generated by electricity over night, and released that stored heat during the day, without using electricity. My 70s/80s secondary school was full of them.
Just a thought regarding condensing boilers and a bit on heat pumps for good measure. As you say, the vast majority of people with gas or oil boilers now have condensing boilers. So far, so good. What’s not good is that many, possibly most of these, have been installed and ‘commissioned’ to run at high temperature flow rates, as was the norm on pre-condensing boilers pre 2004/5, and often run at 80* flow and 70* return temperatures (or there or thereabouts). This means that whilst the boilers are indeed ‘condensing boilers’ they rarely, if ever, run in condensing mode. Even this is understandable, given that human nature demands that when cold, you want to warm up as quickly as possible, and people want to practically burn their hands on a stinging hot radiator to prove to themselves that their heating system is on. This video helps to re-educate people on how to effectively and efficiently use their condensing boiler systems. And I believe that re-education is needed, even more so with heat pumps which generally can not operate at these high flow temps. Part (and only part) of the reason why heat pumps have gained a bad reputation for being expensive to run is because people have blasted extra electricity into them in their quest for high temperature heat in short bursts. Liked and subscribed, by the way…
So true re education. Just been reading the manual of my brand new Worcester Bosch combi which openly says the boiler has been delivered with the heating settings high. Then buried in the energy consumption table it says that the fabled 98.9% energy efficiency is actually achieved at 30% return temperatures, ie low. But how many people would notice that or even know what a 'low-temperature regime' is? I suppose the manufacturers fear that if they delivered the boiler set at low temperatures, new owners would complain their radiators weren't scorching hot and think the boiler wasn't working.
I live in a 2 bedroom , Victorian, stone built gable end terrace - I have tested this over time in terms of how much my gas bill is and found keeping my several years old Baxi Combi Boiler on 24/7 in winter to maintain an average temp of 20* costs no more than switching it off overnight & off again during the day whilst out at work
I find 17° temperature positively tropical 🏝. At the moment I’m putting it on for 1 hour a day to take the chill off the air….I set it to 15°, with a hot water bottle I’m toasty
@@zane___k7333 Why do you need 20c? Put a sweater on and do some exercise, maybe just walking around the house. Am sorry if you are not physically able to do that. I am 83, my wife is 77 and we have no problem with lower home temperatures.
This video has helped so much I am in a housing association 1920s large roomed through terrace high ceilings large rooms and my heating bills were beyond high I am not well and home a lot and totally clueless about managing my boiler n thermostat my home was either too hot or too cold I had no idea about how to manage the hand I have a lovely housing association but never informed of anything regarding this and especially with the cost of living and rising fuel prices,I truly believe we need more information out there for pp on low income but I till I decided to google how to manage my ideal boiler n thermostat because the bills n the too hot too cold home so thank you I am going to rewatch again 🙏🏻🔥🥶
well explained. My home is quite modern. I increased my loft insulation to 250mm. I installed hive and new radiators, bigger ones and put insulation behind radiators. Set boiler to 60'c By using my heating as normal timed, when I am in, my boiler showed to be on about 3-4 hours on the hive trend graph. By leaving it on at 18 and bumping to 19.5 when I am in, the boiler is on for as little as 35 mins in 24 hrs. I am 100% convinced my fuel usage is so much less. I never used heating like this but its so much better, the whole heat mass of the building and every thing in it, is kept at a constant. I also use stats on all the radiators and a hive thermostat on the rad in the bedroom.
Consider changing the HIVE, the only thing it does that is smart is connect to the internet to turn your heating on and off. It doesn’t;’t allow automatic modulation of the boiler via opentherm (presuming you have a modern boiler).
I've followed this and left the heating on, the results have been fantastic! House is nice and comfortable. Heating bill has increased by £197 and getting my house repossessed now. Just kidding, it has improved thermal Comfort and I'm not seeing the vent exhausting loads compared to the neighbours
I have long espoused and operated this method. I have a programmable thermostat so I simply set the temperature for different times of the day and leave the heating on round the clock. It costs no more to keep the house relatively warm by heating constantly as opposed to letting the fabric (thermal mass) go cold and then burning loads of gas to get it back up to the desired temperature.
In support of your video, my ten year old medium sized 3-bed home (in central Scotland) has the condensing boiler controls permanently set for 15 hours at 19 degrees and 15 degrees overnight which lets the boiler run at peak efficiency. Prior to installing a solar PV system, I consumed only 10,500 units of gas for heating, hot water and cooking but this has further reduced by 2,000 units since I installed a solar PV system with an Eddi energy management unit ensuring surplus generation meets the bulk of the hot water load for nine months of the year.
I've got a Solic immersion diverter on my 1.5kW solar array on my boat and I'd reckon it provides all my hot water for 6 months. They're great aren't they? Only reason it doesn't do more is that I have shading issues for 3 hrs per day. Got to love free heat :-)
Dec 16th, 2022: My friend's system: A) room thermostats set to 15-17 deg during the day, 10-13 deg overnight (ie NOT warm, just not freezing cold) : Cost £15 per day, £450 a month. B) Thermostats set to 7.5 deg all the time, heating on a timer, for 2 hours in the morning, and 3 hours in the evening: Cost £5 per day, £150 a month. And this is before the energy price caps increase again in April. It is already simply unaffordable.
Something’s badly wrong in your house then. We have our thermostat on 21 degrees during the day (06:00 to 22:00) and 20 degrees at night (22:00 to 06:00). It’s a 3 bed terrace (120 square meters) and the most we paid at the peak of the energy price cap (last year) was £250 for gas AND electricity. That also included the occasional blast to 23 degrees to keep the wide happy. That being said, we allow the system to work by itself, the thermostat is enabled in September. This way, the house (the HOUSE, not the air) never cools down during winter, because we maintain.
@@chrisl.9750 What heating system do you have? My friend's house has a gas boiler feeding underfloor hot water pipes (flexible pipes laid in channels in concrete, with wood floorboards over). The above two measurements were done over a week each, to allow warm-up and stabilise. But you're on the right track - my feeling is that the thermostat should be set higher, and then everything left on pretty-much 24/7. But they'd need to have a very large buffer of money up-front before embarking on the experiment. That's the problem.
@@chrisl.9750you're lucky to think £250 is affordable .... Our combined gas and electricity before the shit hit the fan was £80 a month in summer and £110 in a cold winter ..... It's now £110 a month for just electricity and we only put the heating on when it's really cold otherwise it's another £100 - £120 a month
Great, informative video. I have a thick floor slab, UFH, ASHP and a home battery. I've recently (last year) found that by running my heating up to 26 over night using my cheap electric (5.5p/kWh about to go up to 8.25p) the heat coming out of the floor slab keeps the house nice and warm up to about 6pm when the heat pump kicks in again to keep it at 20. By doing this I hardly ever need to use any peak rate electric and am saving quite a lot. It seems completely counter-intuitive to have downstairs at its warmest whilst I'm in bed or at work but that's by far the cheapest way to run my house.
Absolutely not a supprise at all, doesn't always work if you have undersized night storage heaters and only need heat in the evening, but if you have a good size heat store (in this case your floor slab) making use of cheap rate night electricity is a no brainer.
id be curious with regards to flow rate, maintenance, etc how this works out. if the heat pump doesn't suffer efficiency loss or break down, then yes a no brainer. But since those seem to be factors it seems more like a yes brainer
Thank you for such a thought provoking video and appreciate the time and effort these things take. I’ve passed this on to my two lads who have wet systems as it will help them make a more informed choice than the ones currently doing the rounds. I have a warm air system powered by a very efficient condensing boiler and as we have an open plan ground floor operates very well but I cannot regulate the temperature it operates at but it is much lower than conventional wet systems. As retirees we need heating on all throughout the day and I’ve approached my heating from a similar ‘speeding car’ car approach. The house is quite well insulated, cavity and loft, and my night time stat is set at 16 degrees. Current weather conditions dictate that it does operate, however I build the house temperature slowly first thing in the morning. To help address the cost we go to bed an hour earlier and get up a little later. The first main heat is at 17 degrees for ½ an hour incrementing up to 18 or 18.5 by 10 in the morning. As I have a smart thermostat I can adjust from my armchair raising to 19 degrees early evening. I do supplement the heating when it gets too cold with heated throw-overs which makes us very comfortable. I find that if the house is left to cool down too much you know pretty instantly how hard the boiler works to build up the heat lost - whether all this saves money I can’t say but as you say it’s also about comfort and preserving our health👍🏻 Kindest regards and Merry Christmas Mike
Brilliant, thanks. I am retired and have recently installed an air-source heat pump, which we run at a higher temperature during the day. It has made our lives so much more comfortable. Now we plan to make the house (1900, solid-walled, detached) as energy efficient as possible - so I will be watching more of your videos. Sadly your map shows that Cambridge is not a place where Heat Geeks are active!
Here in New England, with a large home of over 2k sq. ft. It's best to leave it on steady. It's more comfortable and cost the same or less. You can turn it down at night when everyone is in bed but it doesn't make a lot of difference.
Wow you literally just validated that the way I have my Atag i15s boiler setup (for 20 degrees basically all day, and 18.5 degrees at night [because we have a 1 year old who we want to keep warmer than us adults]) is basically optimal. We find the house takes a while to heat up - so running a steady temp all day gives us the comfort levels we want. I have worked from home for 2 years (soon to change) so having a warm house has been helpful/comforting. We have weather comp and its a condensing boiler - and it has low temperatures generally - which is great when you have a little one who you don't want to hurt themselves on a red hot radiator. The new tech in boilers is pretty great - but it's fapping complicated. I reckon 90% of homeowners will never bother to learn about this stuff - and I reckon 70% of plumbers don't understand how to tune a modern heating system. My installer didn't understand how to set it up properly for our home's characteristics, and I don't blame them: you need to live with the home and the heating system - configuring it for 2 to 3 months to get it right. Even after maybe 50 hours tuning everything (TRVs, timings, temps etc) - it still needs a tweak once in a while. It's absolutely exhausting tbh.
Explained 🥰 so well . I have an older property and a condensing boiler with a room thermostat control in the hallway. I am retired so spend constant time through autumn and winter in our house. I set our boiler to come in @ 7am and go off at 9am then it comes on @ 12 and goes off at 2pm finally it comes on a @ 4:30pm and off at 10:30 pm . This can be overridden in very cold spells : or switched of when it’s not required. I lower the thermostatic radiator valves in bedrooms we do not use but not close them completely. Ps I also use a dehumidifier to reduce humidity and this helps as dryer air warms up more efficiently.
Great in-depth video. One thing I don't think you mentioned which might have an impact is the heat-loss rate is also dictated by internal temperature. And this has a big knock on effect. All things being equal, a house at 18 degrees will lose more heat energy in 1 hour, than a house at 16 degrees, due to the increased temperature gradient. This means keeping your house at 18 overnight, instead of setting the set-back temp to like 15, and allowing the house to cool, will result in more heat energy being lost. Once a house drops under 18, it is losing energy at a slower rate. So the warmer house has lost more heat, and therefore will require more energy being put back in.
If it’s well insulated enough, the drop in temperature will be so slow that it barely matters. If it’s a drafty shithole like here, it drops 2-3 degrees in an hour or two and it definitely makes a difference. That’s the effect on consumption that’s good when switching temperatures. But if you have to heat it so quickly that your heat source becomes less efficient, or worse yet you have to set the temperature extra high to get it comfortable quickly when you get up, that’s some very negative effects.
@@JasperJanssen That is exactly what I experienced. I moved from Germany from a well insulated house with central heating to Ireland into a poorly insulated house with electric heating and all the rules I followed all my life with keeping the heat on at a very low level etc. don’t apply anymore. Once I turn the heating off the room cools down almost immediately and the walls do not hold any heat at all. Turning the heat down or off over night isn’t an option as it takes me half a day to get the temperature back up.. which is bad as I am working from home. I am still not sure what to do. It is easier to maintain 21 Degrees in Germany at an outside temperature of minus 10 Degrees than it is to maintain 17 Degrees in Ireland at an outside temperature of 6 Degrees. I always feel cold here.
Great video. I've found with my new condensing boiler it uses less if kept running with small drops in internal temp - and a 60c flow temp. If I ran it like an old boiler (2hrs am, off all day, on in eve) then it used loads of gas and the exhaust would boost right out in a big cloud. If I run it continuously it seems to stay in the condensing mode more where it barely uses any gas and the exhaust steam barely 'dribbles' out. I use less gas and the house seems warmer.
Yeh I run mine all the time I believe my flow is at 70 and I very rarely noticed the radiators being hot as the boiler just ticks over instead of flat out then off.
Very interesting and confirms my theory. I run the boiler for heating at 15 degrees for long periods. Up to 19 degrees when the frost or snow hits. The 21 degrees gave me the wtf. That's just too hot. Old solid walls in the house, no cavities here. Continual low heat and not walking around in shorts and t-shirts works great. Creating a comfortable constant climate and not a sauna is the way to go. Don't forget air the property regularly. Bad air also makes a house harder to heat. And I run a dehumidifier for long periods to deal with drying washing and kitchen condensation. Tumble dryers ruin clothes and cost silly amounts of money to use.
Very good indeed, but a few observations Background - My own home is a modern double glazed insulated two storey of 100m2, high thermal mass with plastered walls downstairs, low thermal mass upstairs - Having a monitoring system which tracks temps, gas, etc., I was able to tinker and observe the response. The Buderus gas combi runs 24/7, but actual feed temperature versus displayed was adrift -5 to -10 degrees (non-linear). Main thermostat is set at 19.5. As installed, the pump was running full blast, I reduced it to the middle setting once I'd figured what the total required flow was (uses less power to no detriment), and time to boiler temperature was faster. All but the main radiators were found oversized ca 40%, the main rads were changed from -9% to +9%, constant flow type thermostatic valves (minus the thermostat head for the mains) were subsequently fitted throughout so system balance is constant. Were it physically possible I'd bump the mains to +40%, the why will become clearer. Winter temps here can fall to -20 so after adding additional insulation and playing with the system for 5 years to very good effect, some observations on setback and boiler temps for homes of high thermal mass. Figure out your boiler cycle time, viz when the return temp ramps up, the boiler is more efficient the cooler the return, it is important. Don't take the displayed temp as gospel, check it, and don't be concerned by the output temperature, it's the return which derives efficiency. If reducing temps, check the cycle time when returning to normal, it is more efficient to step it up gradually, even if it takes two cycles. eg I know my main rads begin pushing heat back to the combi ca 18 minutes into a heat cycle - If it goes over 21 minutes I bump the boiler temp by 5c to bring the cycle back down, getting so far as 70c (in reality 60) in the last winter (-15) with considerably less gas consumed than having longer cycles. If going away and coming back to a cold house, take it up in small bites (in my case 20 min cycles) leaving it for a half hour. I made the same 2 week winter trip in two consecutive years, leaving the house set to 10c - First year I let it run for hours, second year took it up in stages, same time to target temperature but saved massively on gas consumed after the second trip. :) Bumping insulation levels made by far the greatest impact, lopping 50% off my gas consumption immediately, it's been dropping slowly ever since which has been a bonus. I'd have loved to have fitted an opentherm board to the boiler, but it was so expensive and locked in protocols I gave up on the idea. Good luck.
Firstly, don't stop doing these videos it really brings these important points to people's attention, any comments of mine is subject to discussion ;-). I had one comment to add/make, when intermittent heating with a lower delta t you will have a lower heat loss, I'm thinking can i be bothered to calculate this for my own home. Anyway many years ago i just used to give advice on heating as you put it about occupancy e.g. if your home a lot then underfloor is brilliant, if your at work all day and out on weekends then radiators or fan coils (love fan coil). A test was carried out with heat pumps in same house types, one ran at a constant 21 the other time clocked for 6 hours of the day. The one on all the time had a great SCOP compared to the other, but the other was less money to run a year (£200, at the time). Anyway all the best.
Thanks for a educated unbiased explanation. I've been into heating since 60s dip67 didn't even need electrics, gravity heating /hotwater clockwork 7 day timer ,more a electronics engineer than gas fitter at retirement. From over engineered vailliants to camping quality French/Italian appliances, rule of thumb as you said bigger hse bigger the bill. Personally pushing heatpumps like diesel cars now electric government wrong.
For heat pumps, if you have it, use the target room temperature (auto adaptation) mode. It is far superior to straight WC mode. Although it uses a WC curve in the background it also modulates as target room temperature is approached to maintain target room temperature using the lowest possible flow temperature required to maintain continuous operation. I have an 11.2kW Ecodan which was running for two years in Weather Compensation mode till Oct'23. Because it is a linear curve it never worked well because I always had to intervene once room temperature was reached by dialling down the curve by a few degrees to enable longer runs. Since the beginning of Oct'23 I switched to fully automatic (target room temp/auto adaptive) mode. After 3 months I'm amazed how much difference it has made - at least 15% better COP with like for like room/outside temps, and I have checked and double checked these results so many times now. The operation of the heat pump is so much better "managed", with more gentle startups (not so much initial power spiking), lower flow temps, longer run times, and better management of the effect of defrosting in really cold temps. You can clearly see in the app data how flow temps are modulated automatically as target room temp is approached and then maintained for the longest possible runs at the lowest flow temps. Best news is that I don't have to intervene at all now - I can just leave it to do its thing all the time.
This has to be one of the best videos I’ve seen on this topic. Thank you. I was stuck in the mindset of “on and off” times, despite having a smart thermostat etc. Much food for thought as we have a reasonable thermal mass having internal brick walls, and a condensing boiler etc.
There are many variables including the evening cost for electricity. The main point is that hot objects lose heat energy faster than cool ones so simple thinking is cool is good. Here in N. Ontario I keep the night-time temp set at 15.5 C, day at 18 C and evening at 18.5 C. Our former inefficient gas furnace (air ducts) was still running well after 45 years of use. Our present gas-condensing furnace has functioned well for 15 years despite the morning chug. The true test is to experiment with different homes and heating systems comparing energy cost and equipment costs over the long haul.
You also have to consider that electric prices nowdays in Europe change extremely over the day, sometimes severeal 100 times. For exampel at night the kWh price can be 0,1 cent, but in the afternoon 50 cents, so if you have a Bill that charge per hour it can be alot cheaper to go with the on and off tactics, even if it consume more energy.
I think the _worst_ option is to set the heating too high - So that it gets too warm. The bigger the temperature differential from inside to outside, the higher the rate of transfer. Some people will set their radiators to 6, thinking it gets warmer faster. But instead it just makes it uncomfortable warm inside. I find that setting to 1 or 2 makes the room about 20*c
We installed a Heat Pump system in our home, Suffolk, England a few years ago. We insulated EVERYTHING, ceilings, walls, floors and windows. We tried running the system all day at 18C. This resulted in a one day KWh and standing charge if over £18.00p (£548.00 per month). Leaving your heat pump running all day will result in crippling bills!
When I bought this house 28 years ago [built 1970] 3 bed semi] I was told to leave the heating on 24/7 as it's cheaper, I tried various timed settings and it was cheaper to leave it on set at 18c. In 2010 I had a new Baxi Solo 15kw boiler fitted, again tried timed settings I used more gas, timed on 6.30am and off 10pm 3.5 units used, timed on at 4.30am to 10.30pm 2.5 units used , on 24/7 1.5 units used [gas meter is in cubic feet] Unless we have very cold weather usage is pretty much the same Running gas fire and heating I use 2.5 units per day, gas fire on around 12 hours and has an input of 6.85kw output 4kw The best way to see if leaving your heating on 24/7 or timed is to take week when temp and gas usage are the same then try your timed method for 3 days and leaving on 24/7 for 3 days, read your meter before and after each , also turn your boiler temperature setting down to the minimum it will work on, if it numbered 1 to 6 set it to number 1, if it just has an arrow find the best point and mark it . This guy says houses don't normally drop below 16c , mine does, without heating it's about 5c warmer than outside
As a heat pump service technician I always tell customers to only use it when you need it, so turn it off when you are no longer using the room, this includes using the cooling-A/C mode, And also includes ducted systems. The Air to air exchange units i work with heat a room up very fast about 15 minutes but the house's here in NZ loose heat very quickly. Unless I come by the odd heated floor system, I recommend leaving it on at a lower temperature.
I turn the living room (not in the hall) thermostat down to 19 at night - condensing gas boiler - it rarely kicks in, except in the middle of the winter. Once we get up, we turn it up a degree at a time, to 20, later to 21, and even later to 22 - we never turn it off. If we go out for the evening we turn it down a degree, and turn it back up when we come in.
Brilliant video. I am now of the steady state mindset as I went to the 2 degree set back temperature routine a few years ago (17 degrees over night and 19 degrees during the day) and it did cost a little more, maybe 5-10% but the house is so much more comfortable and was advised that this was a much better way for my condensing boiler to run. Just for info I live in a large 1920’s house which isn’t very well insulated.
If you are finding it very expensive to heat your home this winter, you might consider a 12,000 to 18,000 Btu ductless heat pump, as that is the most energy efficient way to heat your home. And it will also provide low cost cooling in the summer if you want that too. Modern ductless units are almost silent, and they don't cost much to run.
It is quite simple, the heating system replaces the heat lost through the walls, windows and roof. The rate of heat transmission through the walls, windows and roof is directly proportional to the the temperature difference between the inside and outside. If the inside temperature is the same as the outside temperature there will be no heat loss, therefore the lower you can keep the inside temperature the less heat will be lost and less fuel required to replace the heat lost.
@HeatGeek the reason I use setback on a heated floor is so that when I go to bed or wake up, or when I hang out in a living room, the floor is actually warm. So I drop the temperature by 2C during night, or during working hours, just so that I can start recovering slowly when I want actually a warm floor.
I fitted an eph controller with opentherm. The rooms are far more comfortable and the boiler runs quieter. Fairly sure it is using less fuel, but i still set the setback to a low level, about 14 degrees. I programmed every day for the times we are in, we have a fairly consistent routine. When the program temperature rises the boiler fires fairly high but soon drops down within half an hour, with the radiators only being warm. But it isnt going on at all until october, or the internal temp drops to 17 deg. 😂
I would never ever risk leaving it on. Never did even before all these silly prices. It always went on for an hour twice a day last year and previously....this year it's going on even less.
I miss the time when I was living in a 70s flat in Poland heated up by the hot water from a nearby power plant (whole city runs on this). Radiators would come on in autumn and go off in the spring, steady temperature throughout the day with lower temps during the night (you can obviously dial down the rads yourself if you want). No mold, nice and toasty 23C all the time and none of the faff I'm having now in a detached house 😂
When I had my radiant system and new boiler installed, my plumber explained that if he did his calculations correctly, during heating season, our boiler should run at some percentage of its capacity 24 hours a day. After 10 years, I have to say he got it right. The home had been more comfortable than I could have imagined. More insulation may have led to cycling and less efficiency. We’re dealing with a 150 year old home that we added insulation to while the heating system was being upgraded. Adding more insulation would have been a lot more expensive due to complications of reality. I think we found the balance point between paying for fuel and/or insulation. In the future, more insulation may be the better pay off. But that depends on the cost of labor to do it.
Great videos with a lot of information. This past two years I have been looking at ways to reduce heating costs. Best Buy was an oil flow meter to let me know how much oil I was using each day. From that we have carried out simple measures to reduce heating costs significantly. Silicon between window frame and walls a benefit extra insulation around the oil burner significant saving.more loft insulation good. One way valves on vents to reduce drafts significant. Running the heating all day with out kick back was break even but house warm all day. Next steps will be more wall insulation at a big cost and a heat pump when they are matured a bit more.
Interesting video thanks for sharing. Quite a complicated subject isn't it? It would be great to be able to test solid state heating vs 'on demand heating' say by using one method over a week and the other over another week and comparing total energy used but it's not that simple? Of course external temperature would vary significantly unless you live somewhere where the weather is constant, not the UK! It might be 15c one week and 5c the other! Cheers.
We live in a 4 bedroom semi and our heating is on 21 degrees, 24/7, 365 days of the year and our energy bills never raise with rebates every year. Our central heating is by a gas boiler, our loft is insulated as are our walls.
I do !!! I watched your boiler flow videos I made 700 litre of kero last over a year filled in April this year and not used a drop since delivery but I don’t use the boiler to heat hot water but my stat is set at 21 degrees in winter 24/7 and with boiler flow at around 48 degrees flow temp so boiler is always condensing it was totally set up wrong and I’m saving big money all down to these videos !!!
We live in a 1989 built brick interior walls house. We had an air source heat pump fitted in July by a reputable firm Cotswold Energy. It took them 5 days as there is lagged copper piping coming in through house and under floorboards and then through to a wall in the airing cupboard tank. The airing cupboard has lots of dials and levers and piping in it. We've lost one drying shelf as the tank is bigger... it's toasty in there so I can still hang up my wet housecoat from showering daily and wet towel on hair washing days. The gas was disconnected. Therefore we only pay one (electricity) standing charge. We had double to triple glazing done in August which also kept out some of the sweltering heat we had briefly that month. We finished adding maximum loft insulation a week ago. Checked on 25th November before that and we had 6.2kw of hot water/radiators use to every 1kw of energy drawn in that month. So that's 600% efficiency not the 400% we were told we would get when we had house surveyed and only needed one swop to a larger radiator in one room . Compare that with gas at only 90% efficiency! You are told to keep heating on day and night to ensure the system runs properly and we keep it at 18-19 during day and drop it to 17-18 overnight. Bill was £140? In November when heat was on every day and night and that includes keeping one EV car charged. The great thing about the heat pump is that the hot water is pumped harder out of the larger (than previously) tank in the airing cupboard which means we are doing away with both electric showers which just guzzle electricity much more than anything else inside the house. As we can now have shower head system directly from the taps. (For a few weeks between getting rid of leccy shower and getting heat pump the new shower from taps system just dribbled out.) I was dead against going from gas to electricity from the pump due to the High cost £8.5k after the £5k subsidy but we now get much more heat for less cost. I also need to say our leccy was fixed Dec 2021 to Dec 22 at 5p/kw for 4 hour night time cheap leccy and 28p/kw all other time. With Octopus. So bills will rise. It was that cheap cos we have an electric car. Next month it's going up to 12p and 45p. We have 12 panel of solar on roofs facing east and west not south and battery but only get say 1.2 kw produced per day in winter. Most of the year we don't get anywhere near what we need despite filling battery up for cheap during the night. If we had more roof space we would have more solar and more battery as the battery only stores 6kw and can only release 3.5 kw which is why 8.5-10kw showers were draining the battery and using the grid simultaneously. We have had a gadget called Eddi from My Energy fitted in the airing cupboard which will on the rare occasions in the summer when the battery is full divert excess energy when the battery is full to heating the water in the auring cupboard tank, rather than get the tiny 5p/kw money back from handing it back to the Grid. (PS We are down to 400% efficiency now it's blardy freezing.)
I use schedules, sensors and presence indicators (is the TV on in the room?) to change target temps. Different rooms have different targets at different times of the day. Last time I intervened and touched the heating was April to turn the flow temp down to 45*C for summer. Before that it was months and that was a reboot to add a new feature to the system. Normally, when I'm out all day at work, I have a morning and an evening schedule which sets those "setback temps" as you call them, to "medium", a few degrees cooler than "comfortable". Outside of those times the setback temps down another few degrees, ending up around 16*C when the house is vacant, idle or overnight. If a room is in use (TV on), the temp goes to "comfort" level in that room, say 20*C for the office, 19*C for the living room, 18*C for the bedroom. The rest of the house is "unzoned" but has TRVs set to 2 or 3 and 5 in the bathroom. The balance I am running is with the thermal mass, I'm not really heating up the brick/block work, so I'm just getting air temp up and when the heating goes back off, the brickwork quickly absorbs that heat. Given my heat loss issues explain in another comment, I'm kinda stuck this way for now. An idea did cross my mind to more directly heat the brick work, just like a coal fire would have. Not quite sure the cheapest way to achieve that. Blasting the heating won't do it, the building loses too much too fast over 20*C. Direct heat is dangerous as it's got wall paper. Anyway with prices as they are this autumn. I'm setting my minimum temps down to 14*C and setting up humidity monitoring, heating to lower RH in "emergencies" and weather compensation to try and avoid damp due to ambient temp/pressure changes. At 14*C you are right on the damp line so humidity becomes very important.
Glad I watched this, Just started a bit of a project... 1830's house with Stone staircase, I hadn't considered the Thermal inertia of those stairs or the thick walls. I think the house would benefit from steady state heating - but need to figure out a control set up for the boiler - Where do I start? (no heatGeeks in my area of Montrose, Angus and the 1 in arbroath's website is down.)
Check out Plumbing & Renewables Ltd in Elgin if it's not too late. I met these guys on a training course recently and they know their stuff. They will definitely travel to Montrose.
In autumn and winter my heat pump is on 24/7 at 22 degs. We have intelligent Octopus Go and pay pennies on the small hours so it’s not worth turning off, especially with 3 women living in the house! I used to spend a fortune on heating oil in return for a cold house. I now spend the same but have a lovely warm house all day and all night.
Wayne Burgess, Phil Graham - Some people can't afford to have the heating on all the time. Just because you can, there's no need to rub it in peoples faces. There's a name for people like you: arrogant. No one likes a 'boaster' especially when it comes to money. We all know you're having a go at those who struggle to pay their heating bills. Guess you vote Tory then? No surprise there.
Nine months later with the energy hike, I have noticed this. I leave two oil filled electric radiators on all day and night. I keep rooms we don't used closed. During the night they cost £1.30 and during the day the are costing £4.20. The rooms we use, Kitchen, Living Room, Bathroom and Bedroom are all toasty. Since doing this we are now over £1000.00 in credit with our energy supplier Octopus and I can prove this if you question me. We are asking for the money back as we now have our home regulated properly. Two electric Oil Rads on 24/7 and we are toasty. Both are set to 21c.. Where does the £1000.00+ credit come from? £305.00 a month for over a year when we spend on average over the summer and winter £4.00 a day. £305.00 a month is equiv to a budget of £10.00 a day. Some days We don't even reach £1.00.
Another excellent video, I do think there are those amongst us though that may still struggle to get it given they may have basic on off systems that go full pelt during the timed period. My parents don't even have a room thermostat. I understand it fully but any chance of a more basic version with less big words lol.
@@HeatGeek yep got one going out to my parents tmrw based on your advice for the boiler etc. Please do an even simpler video if possible as I like the car accelerator analogy. Some people will still struggle with the depth. Towards the end even I was seeing double lol but it's late.
I have a counterpoint to heated floors with heatpumps being more efficient when constantly on: Solar panels. I have a fantastically well insulated home in a fairly mild climate (very rarely below 9°C at 2pm, even on the dead of winter) and heated floors. Also I have a central ventilation unit with heat recuperator. I like my home never ever colder than 22.5°C, day and night. With this setup, I turn the heated floors for 2 and a half hours each day at around 1:30PM. At that time the air outside is the warmest it's going to be (usually above 10°C, while at night it can be -1°C) and electricity is essentially free because the solar panels. The heated floor temperature is at 32°C, so COP is very good, just about 500%. Those 2 or 3 hours can heat the home from 22.5°C to ~24°C and the home being so efficient stays usually above 23°C until next day at 1:30. In fact the sheer mass of the hydronic heated floors with concrete is so huge that the max temperature is achieved way after the heating has been turned off. This is one instance when intermitent heating can be cheaper even with heatpumps and heated floors. The fact that electricity is free at certain times and than a very efficient home can keep heat so well changes the landscape.
@@HeatGeek I meant that with outside temperature of ~10°C and heating the water in the heated floors to 32°C the COP is ~5 (the official COP at 7°C outside heating water to 35°C is 4.85). The combination of heatpump with free energy around noon (solar panels at its peak) and the very high inertia heating floors has been amazing this winter. Essentially I pay absolutely nothing all year around.
@@MiguelCamba i got the point- actually the hourly rate on electricity is very different on daily AND hourly basis as well...so even without solar panels it may be a good idea.
@@danholm99 the benefit is two folded. First, it’s when you generate the most power. But secondly, it’s the warmest moment of the day and when the heatpump gets the best efficiency of the day. The difference between generating heat when it’s -1C and when it’s +10C it’s significant
@@MiguelCamba yeah...the electricity is always cheapest when u dont need it. But the idea of warming up when it is cheap...in this case it would probably be better with radiators u could warm up to 55 degrees celcius and then just shut down the heat pump and turn it on by timer maybe 10 min. every hour to get the ciculation pump to work. I guess the heat would drop about 7 degrees per hous so u could have heat above 35 for almost 4 hours + 3 times 10 mins. on/off
Everything depends on the level of insulation the property have. Cavity insulation on all external walls means all internal walls will heat up with in a few months and help keep the heating off saving gas/money. If you don’t have good insulation costs will be higher regardless of strategy with heating system.
I noticed for us personally our electricity charge per kw has gone up 10p. But our off peak has actually gone down by 3 p. So thinking of setting our electric radiators on a low temp during the night and make sure our house is insulated well.
Have a very old non condensing oil boiler. Changing is not an option at the mo. House is a lot of cold stone and not the best insulated. Bettter to keep runing low or just off and on when needed 'Also, great video,
We have a Geothermal GSHP and constant is the way to go with this system. The reason is going from say 68F to 72F will cause the 'toaster heat' to activate. So steady state is the way to go with our system.
Great vid, I understand the theory, i just can't work out what is optimal for me. -New build (2022) 3 bed semi. -Gas CH. -1 person in house Working From Home 90%> -2 zone (uppper and ground floor) system with Thermo radiators and 2x nest smart thermostats. Currently I: -Turn if all off/off during night, -manually turn on both zones in the morning for a quick 30 minute 'heat up' Then for remainder of day i leave upstairs (where office is) set to 18 (all radiator thermostats apart from office on 2, office on max chat) and ground floor turned off. This is *just* about cosy enough with a jumper on. Then i basically reverse the process in the evening with downstairs set to 19 and upstairs off. If i am at work or away at weekends (which I usually am) both zones default to eco (10°) ie off. Might i be better off leaving upper floor ar 16° overnight then 18° all day? I think my situation is fairly uncommon, and suspect it wont make a huge difference overall.. Welcome your thoughts.
The heating engineer that looks after my system (service and repairs) says his heating is on for 30 mins in the morning. That’s enough, he says. His ‘mrs’ doesn’t agree. I am with her on that one. He’s a cheap-skate.
I have a simple situation: I have municipal heating // district heating and it is metered with little tubes glued to the radiators, where a liquid evaporates. and 70% are just calculated by the area of my apartment. so using it low and constantly lowers the amound evaporated. (the company looks at all the tubes, and how much was used and looks at the total amount of heat consumed in the house). so, it's more or less just a little bit to cheese the system by running constant, it's not actually saving energy. and running constant means that I don't need to regulate heat all the time, I just let it run steadily. oh by the way, looking at the wiki-article of district heating even shows one of the facilities where I get heat from. EDIT: and what you told about thermal mass is absolutely right. I grew up in a building that was built in 1601, with walls that are half a meter thick (to the metrically challenged 1.5 to 2 foot). winter was hard because there was no insulation at all, but the heat stored from summer helped a lot.
This information is gold dust, am now running my baxi combi at 45-50° all day 6:30am - 8:30pm instead of having boiler on 3 times and set at 60-65°c, and the risk of being comfortable was unfortunately achieved. Set all trvs to 30 but control temp via boiler which is conveniently in the kitchen. So far in the last 3 weeks daily usage is down from about £9 to £6. This is a 1950’s detached bungalow. So big thanks Adam, maybe ASHP in the not to distant future.
Buildings rarely fall below 16C? I got up yesterday to find my sitting room temperature was 6.5C. That's in a semi-detached house built 20 years ago with added loft insulation and cavity insulation. During this cold snap in UK, to achieve even a constant 16C indoors I'd need the boiler running all day and night
Yeah, I laughed when I heard him say that lol. It's only autumn and my kitchen had dropped to 15°C a few days in a row. It drops below 10°C in the winter. The lowest it's got is 5°C. I have cavity wall insulation and loft insulation.
@@EtherealSunset one or two people have said that the concrete floor under my sitting room is to blame for it always being a degree or so below other rooms
We are in our first full year in a huge, Victorian house. We can’t believe how dramatically easier it is to heat a house if it’s very, very well insulated and has underfloor heating with a modern gas boiler.
6 months later and I believe things have changed. The question for many now is "should I leave the heating turned off permanently" This winter I'm gonna explore a toughening up route. Like first thing in the morning have a hot breakfast and then do a vigorous fitness workout. After a quick shower, dress up with many layers of good clothing. Any time during the day when the house (and I) feels cold I'll do several runs up and down the stairs followed by hot coffee. By around January I'd expect my body to have become adapted to colder conditions. Maybe let up for the Christmas period and have the stat on 16° to give myself a treat. 2022 is feeling worse than 1922..
I think this video is totally relevant still. Still have it in permanent where is suits as described, but what target temperature should I turn down to. The and answer is one you can afford
@@HeatGeek Absolutely! Your channel is very relevant. My comment is related to our local energy prices having doubled since last year and therefore I dread the coming Winter. And yes, I'm on low income so I'll have to brave it out like many others ☺
I have a 45 year old boiler in my 2 bedroom house, where I live alone. I leave it running 24/7 turning the thermostat down at night and when I’m at work. It doesn’t go any lower than 17.5 degrees C. (I hate being cold) it takes so long to warm up if I switch it off instead of down. When I 1st moved into my place I used to turn it off at night and during work but found it much better to leave it on. I now have a hamster called Horace so it’s even more essential I keep it the heating on low 🤗
We've had a Mastertherm gshp fitted end of Nov. For the sake of explanation, it's 7 beds, detached and in the flatlands of Linc's where there is no protection from the weather. Underfloor heating downstairs, new double(type 22) rads upstairs with 22mm lagged pipe throughout. Cavity wall insulation and 200mm (ish) of loft insulation. Some new d glazing, some old. We used to have oil fired central heating from a 1990's boiler. Right, intro over........ The heat pump works perfectly for heating and dhw. The biggest thing we have come to realise is that the way the heat pump reacts in order to heat your house is SO different to a gas/oil boiler. As Heat Geek has said- it takes time to react, in our case; I have just finished replacing the heat emitters (rads) and once I turned the heat pump back on it has taken a couple of days to get the house back up to temp. You cannot crank up the room stat and get a toasty house in half an hour ! We leave the heating on 24/7. We are in the house all of the time. We use only the weather compensation on the heat pump to regulate the house temp, we have turned up the underfloor heating and bedroom areas wall stats to stats to max- downstairs stays a steady 21°c and upstairs 19°c. How is this efficient? Well this is down to a very very thorough EPC being conducted before the Gshp was installed along with a comprehensive heat loss calculation carried out by the installer. What we have is a system that trickles just enough heat into the house to offset the amount lost- weather compensation is king here. We are saving money. We used to spend approx £1200 per year on oil. So far, since Nov we have spent £500 in total on electricity (that's total electricity, not just the heat pump) So those that have a heat pump and it's costing a fortune to run; I would ask a couple of questions 1. Was it comprehensively designed by the installation company using an up to date EPC factoring in the data when the heat loss calculation was carried out. 2. Was it installed correctly and to a high standard ? 3. Are you constantly tinkering with the heating curve, not using the weather compensation or turning up/ down the room stats ? "Slow n steady wins the race...." Or in all our cases, it heats the house. Excellent video Heat Geek keep up the good work in educating us all. 👍🏻
That all sounds great, but whats the payback period for the cost of the GSHP system and all those thermal envelope upgrades. The system alone must have cost you around £15K.
Hello @Damian Craddock The system was expensive just shy of £30k but we are very fortunate and grateful that we had some savings. The Rhi will pay us approx £28k back over 7 years, therefore the new heating system, pipes and rads (I'd already fitted the ufloor heating) will have cost us approx £3k. That along with the savings between the oil and electricity used should bring the cost down even further. It is not affordable for everyone as it's a massive upfront cost, but as I said we are fortunate and grateful we had the spare cash at this time.
@@johnbarleycorn7845 Great that long term it cost you 3k but people do not have 30k upfront or even if it was 10k people don’t have that. People cannot get on the housing ladder these days. Something needs to change.
Please remember those of us in very old properties, like me, with a ground floor flat, concrete floors, and solid thick walls... but I do have double glazing. Perhaps y ou could cover how this advice can relate to us. What actions could we take to help the boiler.
I live in an old property like yours, but basement so not even ground floor, concrete floors and thick solid brick walls, single glazed sash windows. I keep every window open a tiny amount (1-2mm) all the time to allow ventilation to prevent condensation and mould. I used to run the boiler twice a day and nearly died of cold in between sessions. Now I run it all day long at about 18deg and it costs about 30% less than before. I haven't run the boiler at night but, having watched this video, now tempted to use a setback temp of 16deg as at this time of year (winter) the flat can drop to 13deg overnight and getting to 18deg from 13 can take about five hours.
Yesterday I got my estimated bill for the next year from Scottish Gas. Current annual cost estimate £1959.03 New annual cost estimate £3708.15 Direct debit cost estimate £3509.04
I had my gas central heating on a schedule and on average it was on for 4.5 hours a day. I've now set it to 15 degrees on manual 24/7 and the average usage is 2.5 hours a day. Even in the minus temperatures we have been having recently. So yes it's cheaper for me to leave it on constantly
I like the car journey example, but a lot of people are out at work, so if using non heat pump, just turn it off, my house takes about 30 minutes to heat up when I get home, and gets turned fully off when I go to bed, and have an electric oil heater in my bedroom if it gets really cold at night
My lifestyle is similar. I don't put the heat on at all in the morning - get up, get dressed, breakfast and away!! At night I come home and if I'm staying in I put the gas boiler on for an hour or two. House get comfortable and if by mid evening I'm getting cold I put a jumper on and in bed an electric blanket!!
I have worked in energy for 35 years and the rub is with a controlled gas/oil boiler in a high thermal mass dwelling that leaving heating on all day adds 10%, leaving it on all night adds a further 10%.Don't trust me though, do your own test. My advice, run it in week one at 2/7hrs week days and 16/16hrs weekends. Then the next week 16x7hrs, then the next week 24x7hrs. Turn your room stat down at night and during the day on options 2 and 3. Then check your meter or smart. Only do this test if you can afford it. Room stats 21c max or 23c if your immobile.In the day or overnight about 17c. Many heating engineers never fitted room thermostats....Big mistake, if you only have TRVs drop settings to 1 in rooms not in use to prevent damp. Boiler thermostat setting depend on how old your boiler is and what type. Seek advice from a couple of sources on this one. Finally, Direct Debit charges are high and on the up, once you do your test look at the lowest cost per week then times it by 6 months to start giving you an idea of what you need to have in the bank to pay your bills. if not already check your summer monthly usage now before the heating goes on. Good luck. Oh, never leave hot water on all the time if you have a cylinder fed via your boiler.
live in a council house and our gas boiler, condensing, is controlled by a thermostat in the coldest part of the house and is on all the time heating as required
@Heat Geek - Loving your approach & goals. One thing you've not included in this is the benefit of using excess solar PV to store energy (even if it's temporarily at poor COP) - I'm considering a high thermal mass floor with large PV & UFH. Enjoy Wednesday's sunshine on Thursday evening - thoughts?
Assuming a modern gas boiler and (and assuming you used the free cavity/roof insulation offers when they were available years ago), Set your heating to the outside temp, and then turn it up by 1C at a time (waiting at least half an hour between each) until you are not uncomfortable but not cold. this is the temp you need to set at night or times of non occupancy. Then turn it up 0.5C at a time (with 1 hour waits) until you are just comfortable. That's the temperature you need to set during occupancy time. You save by setting semi-constant and low heat settings because: (1) your boiler will work at its most efficient when set at low temps for long times rather than at high temps for short bursts, and (2) your house maintains the heat better when the differential between inside and outside is as low as possible. Many people turn up the heat for psychological comfort rather than physical comfort, but its less psychologically comfortable today when you will be worrying about the bills! Also, if you have a non uniform house with cold rooms, the problem is often poor settings on the radiators; radiator-thermostat valves are the answer, and NOT heating the house with the coldest room in mind. Also, make sure they are not all just set fully-on (that is often the problem if you have them badly set up). Finally, non-bill payers are more likely to mess with the thermostat (I think we all know who we're talking about here!), and there may be some training involved here! The temps you will use are often unexpectedly low. For us, they are 14C and 16.5C. Big thing to remember; *you should not change the values if it gets colder*; the heating will maintain the set temps, so you don't need to change them higher! Our energy bills have actually gone *down* so far this Autumn since using this system. Also, if you need to air the home or leave doors open, do it for 30 minutes max and do one room at a time; you lose the freshening effect soon after 30 minutes per room, and are just throwing heat away! Consider using air purifiers instead during the coldest weather period. I recommend Levoit (they're pretty cheap and the filters last forever if you clean them with a vacuum cleaner hose once a month - plus you can leave them constantly on on 'sleep' so the air never gets dusty)
The channel I've been praying for. I have a 3 bed semi detached new build from 2015and has always been confused when the temperature numbers come into play on the thermostat. In winter I've always been confused with what to set my digital thermostats wall controls to before it becomes "you have the heating too high". I always putt it at about 21.5c but often still feels cold, but I worry going higher is basically like having the tap on at full blast. What is a good number to aim for before it's too high if you want to save money on bills?
The lowest your comfortable at. You'll find that as you reduce your flow temperature and elingate your heating times you'll be more comfortable at lower temperatures though. Watch the "mustbwatch before buying a smart stat" video that will be your biggest life change for comfort and cost
By chance, and that is a very truthful statement, I settled for a 16c and 18c split some long time ago and adjustments I have tried in order to reduce fuel usage have impacted on my comfort and overall health so I am back to a 16/18split. I am 78yoa without any major illnesses but aching bones and stiffness provide constant company!! 🙂 I should add that my property is relatively modern, 20years old, with double glazing, and excellent loft and cavity wall insulation.
Even after carefully listening to your advice, I still don't know what's best. I have a typical london brick victorian end-of-terrace property; I believe it's single skin but 2 bricks. Anyway, it's badly insulated but we have a modern boiler and radiators in each room. What we currently do is have the heating on in the mornings and evenings and set the thermostat to 19 degrees when it's mid-cold. When it's really cold, we have it on all day set at 20 degrees. My main motivation is to save money but try to have the inside just-comfortable.
1900s property here too, currently 7c outside, heating on 18c from 07:15 to 17:30 when it's then set to go to 19c until 22:00. Setback temp is the key, if it's too low then it will take ages to get back up to your set temp. Ours is setback to 16.5c and we are running with a flow temp. of 48c. It's a nice steady heat, far more comfortable and it's certainly no more expensive (for us) than 2 or 3 blasts of heat. A lot depends on your house usage, we are in most days so it is ideal for us. If we worked away during the day then we would (probably) go down the schedule route but maybe keep it at at least 16c during the day.
Your comment about "the missus" is funny. I helped a friend in work setup a home project with a wireless temp sensor and a relay controlling his boiler. A few weeks later asked him how it was going and he said he'd thrown in the bin in a fit of rage during the final argument it caused with his spouse. Having run sensors in most of my house rooms, and moved them around, changed sensor types etc. I would steer away from any actual numbers people give you for good comfort targets. Ignore the actual number and just add one or subtract one from it until you find what works. Go with what "feels" right. If you have an other half or family around, the WILL NOT accept opaque automation. You will need to provide them with controls, overrides, etc. Even if they are mostly dumbies like in large corporate offices, the zone thermostats are usually ignored. A sensor of mine in the bedroom fell off the night stand and into a drawer of clothes. The next morning I woke up to a very cold room. Sure the sensor was fine, it was wrapped up nice and snug in a drawer full of clothes reporting 18*C, but the room I had to get out of bed into was 16.8*C! Brrrr..
With smart zone control (smart thermostate/valve per room wirelessly connected to central controller), like Evohome, you can decide the heating strategy per room dependant of its usage and heating source. Like setting the room and kitchen, with floor heating, to a more constant temperature (we are at home all day) and changing the temperature of the other rooms (sleeping rooms, study, bath room, etc.) with radiators according to their respective usage. All of this with an as low as possible max. water temperature of the condensing boiler (we use 50 gr C).
Great video. We have a 30's house, but refurbished and generally very well insulated and double glazed. We have a condensing gas boiler and the house heats up very quickly. I was interested though in your comment about the overnight temperature generally not dropping below 16. We live on the south coast (Sussex), so it's quite mild, and we're often down to 14 -15 overnight in winter. What should I look for first for heat loss? Loft is insulated so not sure where we're losing it...
Depends on the heating source, however, if it is central forced air, definitely set the timers for lower at night and lower while away. It comes down to a simple thing: on average, the house will be below the daytime comfort temperature (say 20°C), and since on average it will be lower than that, you are using less energy overall. With "mass" heating systems and very slow heat transfer I'd go with leave it steady just because you'd never be in phase with the desired temperature.
Agree with everything you say. The only issue with 'low and slow' is when kids leave doors open, building loses all its heat, and takes a long time to come back up to desired temperature. In this scenario, I think high temp to recover the desired comfort temp is preferable.
Join 'Heat Geeks Heating Help for Homeowners" on Facebook for bespoke advice on YOUR specific system.
Amazing!
...if only you hadn't quit Facebook in January aaaaaa
(This is not a complaint, it's great that you guys are offering that. I'll just have to convince the missus to join lol)
@@jezlawrence720 just create a pseudo account!
Hi Adam in all your video you never mention to get the power you need for your air sorse heating from your solar panel and battery storage please can you let me know why
@T U this video is even more relevant now.
That is a superb explanation of how to operate our central heating. I have been keeping our room stat at 17oC all night & most of the day, (we are retired & at home constantly). I have been really worried that we were using far more gas than we needed to. But when the heating has been off for 8 or 12 hours, it takes forever for the house to warm up so I have felt that that was too costly so it's nice to hear that you agree. We are lucky to have a well insulated house & a year old combi boiler, our old one had been installed in 1984 when the house was built, but packed up last Christmas. The new one stopped a week ago because of the big freeze, but the condensing outlet had got frozen at the bottom bend. I had to start near the roof with a hairdryer until it had all melted. Added some insulation around the pipe & got rid of the 90o bend at the bottom & all is good now. Very scary being up a ladder to use the hair drier at 80 years old, but our plumber was too busy with emergency call outs. Thanks for an interesting video.
You're still young at heart 💪
YesI found this to be the case too, having a smart meter allows me to experiment with these issues, I found by leaving my thermo at 15c 24-7 I use less gas than turning it off during the night, I found that the boiler has to work harder for a longtime to raise the temperature to the desired temp in the morning, which costs more in gas to raise the temp back to where it should be compared to allowing the boiler to cutin during the night, plus the structure of the house never drops either helping to maintain a steady heat.
Same here anthony At 75 Iam not going to sit in the cold.We are both 75 live is to short.
@@foppo101you are still young my grandma is 97 lives on her own and is full of joy and life
I have only recently started to look into heat pumps, your videos are so clear and informative, they should be subsidised by the government. Simply amazing!
But from the figures given they are expensive to install, ugly radiators and expensive to run if the house is empty until 18.00 every night so it has to be heating an empty house 16 hours a day.
Entirely agree. I’ve spent so much time trying to educate friends & family that a consistent, low heat where you just adjust the target temperature during night, day & perhaps evening if you want to comfortably relax is the way to go.
When we bought our last house, we had prepayment meters for a while which were obviously awful, but gave me great awareness how much we were spending. Even though I was naive to the flow rate at that point, the constant temperature targets worked a treat. Another level again since I belatedly cottoned on to the flow rate a few years ago…
excellent, describes my situation to a T! Had a 30 year old boiler changed to a Valliant condensing boiler. Amazed at the difference, but getting a new boiler didnt take into account the 30 year old TRVs. Your explanation of the improvements with heating all the time, (retired in bungalow with solid brick walls) almost decribes me peffectly. thank you. very professionally explained.
Hurrah! At last I have found someone explaining and SHOWING how to use the controls on my Air Source Heat Pump. I am pleased I got an AHSP, I just wish the manufacturers instructions were as helpful and as clear as these videos Congratulations Heat Geeks! This is exactly what I have been looking for since I had the system installed.
I've taken a different approach. We live in South Australia and the winters here are mild (we don't get snow), but still cold. Our house is double brick, with lots of insulation in the roof and triple glazed windows. We have a large solar array on the roof. I considered batteries, but our main use of power is heating in the winter and so we have 3 Heat Banks. A Heat Bank is a simple device. An electric element is surrounded by a thermal mass (Magnesite bricks). 2 of our Heat Banks are charged during the day by the solar array and give up their latent heat during the evening. The third (largest) heat bank is charged during the night using off peak power and gives up stored heat during the day. The hot water system is a Heat Pump run on a timer, so it only runs during the day when the solar panels are generating power and we only run the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer during the day. The system has worked well for us.
Triple glazed windows, I'm jealous!
Impressive.
Your 'heat banks' sound extremely similar to our (UK) older 'storage heater', stores heat generated by electricity over night, and released that stored heat during the day, without using electricity. My 70s/80s secondary school was full of them.
Just a thought regarding condensing boilers and a bit on heat pumps for good measure. As you say, the vast majority of people with gas or oil boilers now have condensing boilers. So far, so good. What’s not good is that many, possibly most of these, have been installed and ‘commissioned’ to run at high temperature flow rates, as was the norm on pre-condensing boilers pre 2004/5, and often run at 80* flow and 70* return temperatures (or there or thereabouts). This means that whilst the boilers are indeed ‘condensing boilers’ they rarely, if ever, run in condensing mode. Even this is understandable, given that human nature demands that when cold, you want to warm up as quickly as possible, and people want to practically burn their hands on a stinging hot radiator to prove to themselves that their heating system is on. This video helps to re-educate people on how to effectively and efficiently use their condensing boiler systems. And I believe that re-education is needed, even more so with heat pumps which generally can not operate at these high flow temps. Part (and only part) of the reason why heat pumps have gained a bad reputation for being expensive to run is because people have blasted extra electricity into them in their quest for high temperature heat in short bursts. Liked and subscribed, by the way…
What is the ideal range of flow rate temperatures for a condensing boiler and the optimum operating flow rate temperature within this range?
So true re education. Just been reading the manual of my brand new Worcester Bosch combi which openly says the boiler has been delivered with the heating settings high. Then buried in the energy consumption table it says that the fabled 98.9% energy efficiency is actually achieved at 30% return temperatures, ie low. But how many people would notice that or even know what a 'low-temperature regime' is? I suppose the manufacturers fear that if they delivered the boiler set at low temperatures, new owners would complain their radiators weren't scorching hot and think the boiler wasn't working.
@kanehardy radiator between 50 and 60 is best. But make sure water isn't below 60 as legionnaires disease.
I live in a 2 bedroom , Victorian, stone built gable end terrace - I have tested this over time in terms of how much my gas bill is and found keeping my several years old Baxi Combi Boiler on 24/7 in winter to maintain an average temp of 20* costs no more than switching it off overnight & off again during the day whilst out at work
Interesting but can't understand why you need a temp as high as 20C?
@@Thursdaym2 why not.
I find 17° temperature positively tropical 🏝. At the moment I’m putting it on for 1 hour a day to take the chill off the air….I set it to 15°, with a hot water bottle I’m toasty
It's very true I left mine on 24 hrs to test the theory of a workmate and my gas bill was no higher than when I turned it on and off.
@@zane___k7333 Why do you need 20c? Put a sweater on and do some exercise, maybe just walking around the house. Am sorry if you are not physically able to do that. I am 83, my wife is 77 and we have no problem with lower home temperatures.
This video has helped so much I am in a housing association 1920s large roomed through terrace high ceilings large rooms and my heating bills were beyond high I am not well and home a lot and totally clueless about managing my boiler n thermostat my home was either too hot or too cold I had no idea about how to manage the hand I have a lovely housing association but never informed of anything regarding this and especially with the cost of living and rising fuel prices,I truly believe we need more information out there for pp on low income but I till I decided to google how to manage my ideal boiler n thermostat because the bills n the too hot too cold home so thank you I am going to rewatch again 🙏🏻🔥🥶
well explained. My home is quite modern. I increased my loft insulation to 250mm. I installed hive and new radiators, bigger ones and put insulation behind radiators. Set boiler to 60'c
By using my heating as normal timed, when I am in, my boiler showed to be on about 3-4 hours on the hive trend graph. By leaving it on at 18 and bumping to 19.5 when I am in, the boiler is on for as little as 35 mins in 24 hrs. I am 100% convinced my fuel usage is so much less. I never used heating like this but its so much better, the whole heat mass of the building and every thing in it, is kept at a constant. I also use stats on all the radiators and a hive thermostat on the rad in the bedroom.
Consider changing the HIVE, the only thing it does that is smart is connect to the internet to turn your heating on and off. It doesn’t;’t allow automatic modulation of the boiler via opentherm (presuming you have a modern boiler).
brilliant video, thank you! I'm sorting my 82 yr old mums heating and learnt so much watching this.
I've followed this and left the heating on, the results have been fantastic! House is nice and comfortable. Heating bill has increased by £197 and getting my house repossessed now. Just kidding, it has improved thermal Comfort and I'm not seeing the vent exhausting loads compared to the neighbours
I have long espoused and operated this method. I have a programmable thermostat so I simply set the temperature for different times of the day and leave the heating on round the clock. It costs no more to keep the house relatively warm by heating constantly as opposed to letting the fabric (thermal mass) go cold and then burning loads of gas to get it back up to the desired temperature.
In support of your video, my ten year old medium sized 3-bed home (in central Scotland) has the condensing boiler controls permanently set for 15 hours at 19 degrees and 15 degrees overnight which lets the boiler run at peak efficiency. Prior to installing a solar PV system, I consumed only 10,500 units of gas for heating, hot water and cooking but this has further reduced by 2,000 units since I installed a solar PV system with an Eddi energy management unit ensuring surplus generation meets the bulk of the hot water load for nine months of the year.
I've got a Solic immersion diverter on my 1.5kW solar array on my boat and I'd reckon it provides all my hot water for 6 months. They're great aren't they? Only reason it doesn't do more is that I have shading issues for 3 hrs per day. Got to love free heat :-)
@@charlespleydell6746 Totally agree!
Dec 16th, 2022: My friend's system: A) room thermostats set to 15-17 deg during the day, 10-13 deg overnight (ie NOT warm, just not freezing cold) : Cost £15 per day, £450 a month.
B) Thermostats set to 7.5 deg all the time, heating on a timer, for 2 hours in the morning, and 3 hours in the evening: Cost £5 per day, £150 a month. And this is before the energy price caps increase again in April. It is already simply unaffordable.
Something’s badly wrong in your house then. We have our thermostat on 21 degrees during the day (06:00 to 22:00) and 20 degrees at night (22:00 to 06:00). It’s a 3 bed terrace (120 square meters) and the most we paid at the peak of the energy price cap (last year) was £250 for gas AND electricity.
That also included the occasional blast to 23 degrees to keep the wide happy.
That being said, we allow the system to work by itself, the thermostat is enabled in September. This way, the house (the HOUSE, not the air) never cools down during winter, because we maintain.
@@chrisl.9750 What heating system do you have? My friend's house has a gas boiler feeding underfloor hot water pipes (flexible pipes laid in channels in concrete, with wood floorboards over). The above two measurements were done over a week each, to allow warm-up and stabilise. But you're on the right track - my feeling is that the thermostat should be set higher, and then everything left on pretty-much 24/7. But they'd need to have a very large buffer of money up-front before embarking on the experiment. That's the problem.
@@chrisl.9750you're lucky to think £250 is affordable .... Our combined gas and electricity before the shit hit the fan was £80 a month in summer and £110 in a cold winter ..... It's now £110 a month for just electricity and we only put the heating on when it's really cold otherwise it's another £100 - £120 a month
Great, informative video.
I have a thick floor slab, UFH, ASHP and a home battery.
I've recently (last year) found that by running my heating up to 26 over night using my cheap electric (5.5p/kWh about to go up to 8.25p) the heat coming out of the floor slab keeps the house nice and warm up to about 6pm when the heat pump kicks in again to keep it at 20. By doing this I hardly ever need to use any peak rate electric and am saving quite a lot.
It seems completely counter-intuitive to have downstairs at its warmest whilst I'm in bed or at work but that's by far the cheapest way to run my house.
Absolutely not a supprise at all, doesn't always work if you have undersized night storage heaters and only need heat in the evening, but if you have a good size heat store (in this case your floor slab) making use of cheap rate night electricity is a no brainer.
id be curious with regards to flow rate, maintenance, etc how this works out. if the heat pump doesn't suffer efficiency loss or break down, then yes a no brainer. But since those seem to be factors it seems more like a yes brainer
Thank you for such a thought provoking video and appreciate the time and effort these things take. I’ve passed this on to my two lads who have wet systems as it will help them make a more informed choice than the ones currently doing the rounds. I have a warm air system powered by a very efficient condensing boiler and as we have an open plan ground floor operates very well but I cannot regulate the temperature it operates at but it is much lower than conventional wet systems. As retirees we need heating on all throughout the day and I’ve approached my heating from a similar ‘speeding car’ car approach. The house is quite well insulated, cavity and loft, and my night time stat is set at 16 degrees. Current weather conditions dictate that it does operate, however I build the house temperature slowly first thing in the morning. To help address the cost we go to bed an hour earlier and get up a little later. The first main heat is at 17 degrees for ½ an hour incrementing up to 18 or 18.5 by 10 in the morning. As I have a smart thermostat I can adjust from my armchair raising to 19 degrees early evening. I do supplement the heating when it gets too cold with heated throw-overs which makes us very comfortable. I find that if the house is left to cool down too much you know pretty instantly how hard the boiler works to build up the heat lost - whether all this saves money I can’t say but as you say it’s also about comfort and preserving our health👍🏻 Kindest regards and Merry Christmas Mike
Brilliant, thanks. I am retired and have recently installed an air-source heat pump, which we run at a higher temperature during the day. It has made our lives so much more comfortable. Now we plan to make the house (1900, solid-walled, detached) as energy efficient as possible - so I will be watching more of your videos. Sadly your map shows that Cambridge is not a place where Heat Geeks are active!
Bit of a black hole around there at the moment!
@@HeatGeek Also North Wales!
Here in New England, with a large home of over 2k sq. ft. It's best to leave it on steady. It's more comfortable and cost the same or less. You can turn it down at night when everyone is in bed but it doesn't make a lot of difference.
Very informative, I have been telling friends the same story for years but I don't think that many believe me. Well done!
Wow you literally just validated that the way I have my Atag i15s boiler setup (for 20 degrees basically all day, and 18.5 degrees at night [because we have a 1 year old who we want to keep warmer than us adults]) is basically optimal.
We find the house takes a while to heat up - so running a steady temp all day gives us the comfort levels we want. I have worked from home for 2 years (soon to change) so having a warm house has been helpful/comforting.
We have weather comp and its a condensing boiler - and it has low temperatures generally - which is great when you have a little one who you don't want to hurt themselves on a red hot radiator.
The new tech in boilers is pretty great - but it's fapping complicated. I reckon 90% of homeowners will never bother to learn about this stuff - and I reckon 70% of plumbers don't understand how to tune a modern heating system. My installer didn't understand how to set it up properly for our home's characteristics, and I don't blame them: you need to live with the home and the heating system - configuring it for 2 to 3 months to get it right.
Even after maybe 50 hours tuning everything (TRVs, timings, temps etc) - it still needs a tweak once in a while.
It's absolutely exhausting tbh.
Explained 🥰 so well .
I have an older property and a condensing boiler with a room thermostat control in the hallway.
I am retired so spend constant time through autumn and winter in our house.
I set our boiler to come in @ 7am and go off at 9am then it comes on @ 12 and goes off at 2pm finally it comes on a
@ 4:30pm and off at 10:30 pm . This can be overridden in very cold spells : or switched of when it’s not required.
I lower the thermostatic radiator valves in bedrooms we do not use but not close them completely.
Ps I also use a dehumidifier to reduce humidity and this helps as dryer air warms up more efficiently.
Great in-depth video. One thing I don't think you mentioned which might have an impact is the heat-loss rate is also dictated by internal temperature. And this has a big knock on effect. All things being equal, a house at 18 degrees will lose more heat energy in 1 hour, than a house at 16 degrees, due to the increased temperature gradient. This means keeping your house at 18 overnight, instead of setting the set-back temp to like 15, and allowing the house to cool, will result in more heat energy being lost. Once a house drops under 18, it is losing energy at a slower rate. So the warmer house has lost more heat, and therefore will require more energy being put back in.
If it’s well insulated enough, the drop in temperature will be so slow that it barely matters. If it’s a drafty shithole like here, it drops 2-3 degrees in an hour or two and it definitely makes a difference. That’s the effect on consumption that’s good when switching temperatures. But if you have to heat it so quickly that your heat source becomes less efficient, or worse yet you have to set the temperature extra high to get it comfortable quickly when you get up, that’s some very negative effects.
@@JasperJanssen That is exactly what I experienced. I moved from Germany from a well insulated house with central heating to Ireland into a poorly insulated house with electric heating and all the rules I followed all my life with keeping the heat on at a very low level etc. don’t apply anymore. Once I turn the heating off the room cools down almost immediately and the walls do not hold any heat at all. Turning the heat down or off over night isn’t an option as it takes me half a day to get the temperature back up.. which is bad as I am working from home. I am still not sure what to do. It is easier to maintain 21 Degrees in Germany at an outside temperature of minus 10 Degrees than it is to maintain 17 Degrees in Ireland at an outside temperature of 6 Degrees. I always feel cold here.
@@ich8159 we like to live in Victorian times over here 😂
@@jimmybrown3380 You don’t seem to feel the cold. I assume this is the result of conditioning from early childhood on. 😉😂
Great video. I've found with my new condensing boiler it uses less if kept running with small drops in internal temp - and a 60c flow temp. If I ran it like an old boiler (2hrs am, off all day, on in eve) then it used loads of gas and the exhaust would boost right out in a big cloud. If I run it continuously it seems to stay in the condensing mode more where it barely uses any gas and the exhaust steam barely 'dribbles' out. I use less gas and the house seems warmer.
Yeh I run mine all the time I believe my flow is at 70 and I very rarely noticed the radiators being hot as the boiler just ticks over instead of flat out then off.
Very interesting and confirms my theory.
I run the boiler for heating at 15 degrees for long periods.
Up to 19 degrees when the frost or snow hits.
The 21 degrees gave me the wtf.
That's just too hot.
Old solid walls in the house, no cavities here.
Continual low heat and not walking around in shorts and t-shirts works great.
Creating a comfortable constant climate and not a sauna is the way to go.
Don't forget air the property regularly.
Bad air also makes a house harder to heat.
And I run a dehumidifier for long periods to deal with drying washing and kitchen condensation.
Tumble dryers ruin clothes and cost silly amounts of money to use.
I am really shocked you have only 38k subs.. man.. every single plumber should subscribe, and every DIY at heart person should.. absolute gold stuff
Very good indeed, but a few observations
Background - My own home is a modern double glazed insulated two storey of 100m2, high thermal mass with plastered walls downstairs, low thermal mass upstairs - Having a monitoring system which tracks temps, gas, etc., I was able to tinker and observe the response.
The Buderus gas combi runs 24/7, but actual feed temperature versus displayed was adrift -5 to -10 degrees (non-linear). Main thermostat is set at 19.5.
As installed, the pump was running full blast, I reduced it to the middle setting once I'd figured what the total required flow was (uses less power to no detriment), and time to boiler temperature was faster.
All but the main radiators were found oversized ca 40%, the main rads were changed from -9% to +9%, constant flow type thermostatic valves (minus the thermostat head for the mains) were subsequently fitted throughout so system balance is constant. Were it physically possible I'd bump the mains to +40%, the why will become clearer.
Winter temps here can fall to -20 so after adding additional insulation and playing with the system for 5 years to very good effect, some observations on setback and boiler temps for homes of high thermal mass.
Figure out your boiler cycle time, viz when the return temp ramps up, the boiler is more efficient the cooler the return, it is important.
Don't take the displayed temp as gospel, check it, and don't be concerned by the output temperature, it's the return which derives efficiency.
If reducing temps, check the cycle time when returning to normal, it is more efficient to step it up gradually, even if it takes two cycles.
eg
I know my main rads begin pushing heat back to the combi ca 18 minutes into a heat cycle - If it goes over 21 minutes I bump the boiler temp by 5c to bring the cycle back down, getting so far as 70c (in reality 60) in the last winter (-15) with considerably less gas consumed than having longer cycles.
If going away and coming back to a cold house, take it up in small bites (in my case 20 min cycles) leaving it for a half hour.
I made the same 2 week winter trip in two consecutive years, leaving the house set to 10c - First year I let it run for hours, second year took it up in stages, same time to target temperature but saved massively on gas consumed after the second trip.
:)
Bumping insulation levels made by far the greatest impact, lopping 50% off my gas consumption immediately, it's been dropping slowly ever since which has been a bonus.
I'd have loved to have fitted an opentherm board to the boiler, but it was so expensive and locked in protocols I gave up on the idea.
Good luck.
Firstly, don't stop doing these videos it really brings these important points to people's attention, any comments of mine is subject to discussion ;-). I had one comment to add/make, when intermittent heating with a lower delta t you will have a lower heat loss, I'm thinking can i be bothered to calculate this for my own home. Anyway many years ago i just used to give advice on heating as you put it about occupancy e.g. if your home a lot then underfloor is brilliant, if your at work all day and out on weekends then radiators or fan coils (love fan coil). A test was carried out with heat pumps in same house types, one ran at a constant 21 the other time clocked for 6 hours of the day. The one on all the time had a great SCOP compared to the other, but the other was less money to run a year (£200, at the time). Anyway all the best.
Thanks for a educated unbiased explanation. I've been into heating since 60s dip67 didn't even need electrics, gravity heating /hotwater clockwork 7 day timer ,more a electronics engineer than gas fitter at retirement. From over engineered vailliants to camping quality French/Italian appliances, rule of thumb as you said bigger hse bigger the bill. Personally pushing heatpumps like diesel cars now electric government wrong.
For heat pumps, if you have it, use the target room temperature (auto adaptation) mode. It is far superior to straight WC mode. Although it uses a WC curve in the background it also modulates as target room temperature is approached to maintain target room temperature using the lowest possible flow temperature required to maintain continuous operation. I have an 11.2kW Ecodan which was running for two years in Weather Compensation mode till Oct'23. Because it is a linear curve it never worked well because I always had to intervene once room temperature was reached by dialling down the curve by a few degrees to enable longer runs. Since the beginning of Oct'23 I switched to fully automatic (target room temp/auto adaptive) mode. After 3 months I'm amazed how much difference it has made - at least 15% better COP with like for like room/outside temps, and I have checked and double checked these results so many times now. The operation of the heat pump is so much better "managed", with more gentle startups (not so much initial power spiking), lower flow temps, longer run times, and better management of the effect of defrosting in really cold temps. You can clearly see in the app data how flow temps are modulated automatically as target room temp is approached and then maintained for the longest possible runs at the lowest flow temps. Best news is that I don't have to intervene at all now - I can just leave it to do its thing all the time.
Thanks for your time, in putting all of these videos together. It's important information for people to have, right now.
This has to be one of the best videos I’ve seen on this topic. Thank you. I was stuck in the mindset of “on and off” times, despite having a smart thermostat etc. Much food for thought as we have a reasonable thermal mass having internal brick walls, and a condensing boiler etc.
Thanks Graham. Importantly your smart stat MUST be wired via bus connection. What stat and boiler do you have?
@@HeatGeek Hi there, why is wired controllers critical please? Great channel BTW 👍🏻
@@RossTalloIf the boilert doesnt know whether the thermostats are open or not it will kick in unnecessary and waste energy.
There are many variables including the evening cost for electricity. The main point is that hot objects lose heat energy faster than cool ones so simple thinking is cool is good. Here in N. Ontario I keep the night-time temp set at 15.5 C, day at 18 C and evening at 18.5 C. Our former inefficient gas furnace (air ducts) was still running well after 45 years of use. Our present gas-condensing furnace has functioned well for 15 years despite the morning chug. The true test is to experiment with different homes and heating systems comparing energy cost and equipment costs over the long haul.
Absolutely no clue now! Too many variables - if only there was a website that took all these in to account and gave you best advice
You also have to consider that electric prices nowdays in Europe change extremely over the day, sometimes severeal 100 times.
For exampel at night the kWh price can be 0,1 cent, but in the afternoon 50 cents, so if you have a Bill that charge per hour it can be alot cheaper to go with the on and off tactics, even if it consume more energy.
Yes fluctuating electric prices is yet another variable that complicates the equation quite a bit
I think the _worst_ option is to set the heating too high - So that it gets too warm.
The bigger the temperature differential from inside to outside, the higher the rate of transfer.
Some people will set their radiators to 6, thinking it gets warmer faster. But instead it just makes it uncomfortable warm inside. I find that setting to 1 or 2 makes the room about 20*c
sounds like your flow temperature is too high
Sounds like you have not discovered thermostat despite is 21 century
We installed a Heat Pump system in our home, Suffolk, England a few years ago. We insulated EVERYTHING, ceilings, walls, floors and windows. We tried running the system all day at 18C. This resulted in a one day KWh and standing charge if over £18.00p (£548.00 per month). Leaving your heat pump running all day will result in crippling bills!
Agree! I am having the same issue in North America! What is the solution? Setback or not? Or go back to gas furnace?
When I bought this house 28 years ago [built 1970] 3 bed semi] I was told to leave the heating on 24/7 as it's cheaper, I tried various timed settings and it was cheaper to leave it on set at 18c.
In 2010 I had a new Baxi Solo 15kw boiler fitted,
again tried timed settings I used more gas, timed on 6.30am and off 10pm 3.5 units used, timed on at 4.30am to 10.30pm 2.5 units used , on 24/7 1.5 units used [gas meter is in cubic feet]
Unless we have very cold weather usage is pretty much the same
Running gas fire and heating I use 2.5 units per day, gas fire on around 12 hours and has an input of 6.85kw output 4kw
The best way to see if leaving your heating on 24/7 or timed is to take week when temp and gas usage are the same then try your timed method for 3 days and leaving on 24/7 for 3 days, read your meter before and after each , also turn your boiler temperature setting down to the minimum it will work on, if it numbered 1 to 6 set it to number 1, if it just has an arrow find the best point and mark it .
This guy says houses don't normally drop below 16c , mine does, without heating it's about 5c warmer than outside
As a heat pump service technician I always tell customers to only use it when you need it, so turn it off when you are no longer using the room, this includes using the cooling-A/C mode,
And also includes ducted systems.
The Air to air exchange units i work with heat a room up very fast about 15 minutes but the house's here in NZ loose heat very quickly.
Unless I come by the odd heated floor system, I recommend leaving it on at a lower temperature.
This is the info I was looking for, it's different in NZ/Aus
Do you recommend a temperature range for efficiency too?
I turn the living room (not in the hall) thermostat down to 19 at night - condensing gas boiler - it rarely kicks in, except in the middle of the winter.
Once we get up, we turn it up a degree at a time, to 20, later to 21, and even later to 22 - we never turn it off.
If we go out for the evening we turn it down a degree, and turn it back up when we come in.
Brilliant video. I am now of the steady state mindset as I went to the 2 degree set back temperature routine a few years ago (17 degrees over night and 19 degrees during the day) and it did cost a little more, maybe 5-10% but the house is so much more comfortable and was advised that this was a much better way for my condensing boiler to run. Just for info I live in a large 1920’s house which isn’t very well insulated.
Sounds like you could do woth a weather compensator.. it should have not used much more gas really
@@HeatGeek, thanks for the info, I’ll look into that 👍🏻
If you are finding it very expensive to heat your home this winter, you might consider a 12,000 to 18,000 Btu ductless heat pump, as that is the most energy efficient way to heat your home. And it will also provide low cost cooling in the summer if you want that too. Modern ductless units are almost silent, and they don't cost much to run.
It is quite simple, the heating system replaces the heat lost through the walls, windows and roof. The rate of heat transmission through the walls, windows and roof is directly proportional to the the temperature difference between the inside and outside. If the inside temperature is the same as the outside temperature there will be no heat loss, therefore the lower you can keep the inside temperature the less heat will be lost and less fuel required to replace the heat lost.
Not forgetting the insulation levels are the most critical variable in controlling heat loss.
@HeatGeek the reason I use setback on a heated floor is so that when I go to bed or wake up, or when I hang out in a living room, the floor is actually warm. So I drop the temperature by 2C during night, or during working hours, just so that I can start recovering slowly when I want actually a warm floor.
I fitted an eph controller with opentherm. The rooms are far more comfortable and the boiler runs quieter. Fairly sure it is using less fuel, but i still set the setback to a low level, about 14 degrees. I programmed every day for the times we are in, we have a fairly consistent routine. When the program temperature rises the boiler fires fairly high but soon drops down within half an hour, with the radiators only being warm. But it isnt going on at all until october, or the internal temp drops to 17 deg. 😂
I would never ever risk leaving it on. Never did even before all these silly prices. It always went on for an hour twice a day last year and previously....this year it's going on even less.
@@Borderman47 You're braver than me.
Each building and user combination has it's unique pattern.
This video is pretty good.
I miss the time when I was living in a 70s flat in Poland heated up by the hot water from a nearby power plant (whole city runs on this). Radiators would come on in autumn and go off in the spring, steady temperature throughout the day with lower temps during the night (you can obviously dial down the rads yourself if you want). No mold, nice and toasty 23C all the time and none of the faff I'm having now in a detached house 😂
When I had my radiant system and new boiler installed, my plumber explained that if he did his calculations correctly, during heating season, our boiler should run at some percentage of its capacity 24 hours a day. After 10 years, I have to say he got it right. The home had been more comfortable than I could have imagined. More insulation may have led to cycling and less efficiency. We’re dealing with a 150 year old home that we added insulation to while the heating system was being upgraded. Adding more insulation would have been a lot more expensive due to complications of reality. I think we found the balance point between paying for fuel and/or insulation. In the future, more insulation may be the better pay off. But that depends on the cost of labor to do it.
Great videos with a lot of information. This past two years I have been looking at ways to reduce heating costs. Best Buy was an oil flow meter to let me know how much oil I was using each day. From that we have carried out simple measures to reduce heating costs significantly. Silicon between window frame and walls a benefit extra insulation around the oil burner significant saving.more loft insulation good. One way valves on vents to reduce drafts significant. Running the heating all day with out kick back was break even but house warm all day. Next steps will be more wall insulation at a big cost and a heat pump when they are matured a bit more.
Interesting video thanks for sharing. Quite a complicated subject isn't it? It would be great to be able to test solid state heating vs 'on demand heating' say by using one method over a week and the other over another week and comparing total energy used but it's not that simple? Of course external temperature would vary significantly unless you live somewhere where the weather is constant, not the UK! It might be 15c one week and 5c the other! Cheers.
Great idea/question
We live in a 4 bedroom semi and our heating is on 21 degrees, 24/7, 365 days of the year and our energy bills never raise with rebates every year. Our central heating is by a gas boiler, our loft is insulated as are our walls.
I do !!! I watched your boiler flow videos I made 700 litre of kero last over a year filled in April this year and not used a drop since delivery but I don’t use the boiler to heat hot water but my stat is set at 21 degrees in winter 24/7 and with boiler flow at around 48 degrees flow temp so boiler is always condensing it was totally set up wrong and I’m saving big money all down to these videos !!!
We live in a 1989 built brick interior walls house. We had an air source heat pump fitted in July by a reputable firm Cotswold Energy. It took them 5 days as there is lagged copper piping coming in through house and under floorboards and then through to a wall in the airing cupboard tank. The airing cupboard has lots of dials and levers and piping in it. We've lost one drying shelf as the tank is bigger... it's toasty in there so I can still hang up my wet housecoat from showering daily and wet towel on hair washing days. The gas was disconnected. Therefore we only pay one (electricity) standing charge. We had double to triple glazing done in August which also kept out some of the sweltering heat we had briefly that month. We finished adding maximum loft insulation a week ago. Checked on 25th November before that and we had 6.2kw of hot water/radiators use to every 1kw of energy drawn in that month. So that's 600% efficiency not the 400% we were told we would get when we had house surveyed and only needed one swop to a larger radiator in one room . Compare that with gas at only 90% efficiency! You are told to keep heating on day and night to ensure the system runs properly and we keep it at 18-19 during day and drop it to 17-18 overnight. Bill was £140? In November when heat was on every day and night and that includes keeping one EV car charged. The great thing about the heat pump is that the hot water is pumped harder out of the larger (than previously) tank in the airing cupboard which means we are doing away with both electric showers which just guzzle electricity much more than anything else inside the house. As we can now have shower head system directly from the taps. (For a few weeks between getting rid of leccy shower and getting heat pump the new shower from taps system just dribbled out.) I was dead against going from gas to electricity from the pump due to the High cost £8.5k after the £5k subsidy but we now get much more heat for less cost. I also need to say our leccy was fixed Dec 2021 to Dec 22 at 5p/kw for 4 hour night time cheap leccy and 28p/kw all other time. With Octopus. So bills will rise. It was that cheap cos we have an electric car. Next month it's going up to 12p and 45p. We have 12 panel of solar on roofs facing east and west not south and battery but only get say 1.2 kw produced per day in winter. Most of the year we don't get anywhere near what we need despite filling battery up for cheap during the night. If we had more roof space we would have more solar and more battery as the battery only stores 6kw and can only release 3.5 kw which is why 8.5-10kw showers were draining the battery and using the grid simultaneously. We have had a gadget called Eddi from My Energy fitted in the airing cupboard which will on the rare occasions in the summer when the battery is full divert excess energy when the battery is full to heating the water in the auring cupboard tank, rather than get the tiny 5p/kw money back from handing it back to the Grid. (PS We are down to 400% efficiency now it's blardy freezing.)
I use schedules, sensors and presence indicators (is the TV on in the room?) to change target temps. Different rooms have different targets at different times of the day. Last time I intervened and touched the heating was April to turn the flow temp down to 45*C for summer. Before that it was months and that was a reboot to add a new feature to the system.
Normally, when I'm out all day at work, I have a morning and an evening schedule which sets those "setback temps" as you call them, to "medium", a few degrees cooler than "comfortable". Outside of those times the setback temps down another few degrees, ending up around 16*C when the house is vacant, idle or overnight. If a room is in use (TV on), the temp goes to "comfort" level in that room, say 20*C for the office, 19*C for the living room, 18*C for the bedroom. The rest of the house is "unzoned" but has TRVs set to 2 or 3 and 5 in the bathroom.
The balance I am running is with the thermal mass, I'm not really heating up the brick/block work, so I'm just getting air temp up and when the heating goes back off, the brickwork quickly absorbs that heat. Given my heat loss issues explain in another comment, I'm kinda stuck this way for now. An idea did cross my mind to more directly heat the brick work, just like a coal fire would have. Not quite sure the cheapest way to achieve that. Blasting the heating won't do it, the building loses too much too fast over 20*C. Direct heat is dangerous as it's got wall paper.
Anyway with prices as they are this autumn. I'm setting my minimum temps down to 14*C and setting up humidity monitoring, heating to lower RH in "emergencies" and weather compensation to try and avoid damp due to ambient temp/pressure changes. At 14*C you are right on the damp line so humidity becomes very important.
How are you achieving all that out of interest? Smart TRVs?
Glad I watched this, Just started a bit of a project... 1830's house with Stone staircase, I hadn't considered the Thermal inertia of those stairs or the thick walls.
I think the house would benefit from steady state heating - but need to figure out a control set up for the boiler - Where do I start?
(no heatGeeks in my area of Montrose, Angus and the 1 in arbroath's website is down.)
Check out Plumbing & Renewables Ltd in Elgin if it's not too late. I met these guys on a training course recently and they know their stuff. They will definitely travel to Montrose.
In autumn and winter my heat pump is on 24/7 at 22 degs. We have intelligent Octopus Go and pay pennies on the small hours so it’s not worth turning off, especially with 3 women living in the house! I used to spend a fortune on heating oil in return for a cold house. I now spend the same but have a lovely warm house all day and all night.
there’s a word for blokes who don’t leave the heating on 24/7/365, Single 🤘😎🤘😂😂😂😂😂🙏
Rich 😉
That's a Shit mrs
Or tight 😄
Wayne Burgess, Phil Graham - Some people can't afford to have the heating on all the time. Just because you can, there's no need to rub it in peoples faces. There's a name for people like you: arrogant.
No one likes a 'boaster' especially when it comes to money. We all know you're having a go at those who struggle to pay their heating bills. Guess you vote Tory then? No surprise there.
There's also one for blokes who can't spell
Nine months later with the energy hike, I have noticed this. I leave two oil filled electric radiators on all day and night. I keep rooms we don't used closed. During the night they cost £1.30 and during the day the are costing £4.20. The rooms we use, Kitchen, Living Room, Bathroom and Bedroom are all toasty. Since doing this we are now over £1000.00 in credit with our energy supplier Octopus and I can prove this if you question me. We are asking for the money back as we now have our home regulated properly. Two electric Oil Rads on 24/7 and we are toasty. Both are set to 21c.. Where does the £1000.00+ credit come from? £305.00 a month for over a year when we spend on average over the summer and winter £4.00 a day. £305.00 a month is equiv to a budget of £10.00 a day. Some days We don't even reach £1.00.
Another excellent video, I do think there are those amongst us though that may still struggle to get it given they may have basic on off systems that go full pelt during the timed period. My parents don't even have a room thermostat. I understand it fully but any chance of a more basic version with less big words lol.
The subject just is complex. And I'm glad people are starting to realise so, so they will listen to the pros.. hence advising to call a heat geek
@@HeatGeek yep got one going out to my parents tmrw based on your advice for the boiler etc. Please do an even simpler video if possible as I like the car accelerator analogy. Some people will still struggle with the depth. Towards the end even I was seeing double lol but it's late.
I have a counterpoint to heated floors with heatpumps being more efficient when constantly on: Solar panels.
I have a fantastically well insulated home in a fairly mild climate (very rarely below 9°C at 2pm, even on the dead of winter) and heated floors. Also I have a central ventilation unit with heat recuperator. I like my home never ever colder than 22.5°C, day and night.
With this setup, I turn the heated floors for 2 and a half hours each day at around 1:30PM. At that time the air outside is the warmest it's going to be (usually above 10°C, while at night it can be -1°C) and electricity is essentially free because the solar panels. The heated floor temperature is at 32°C, so COP is very good, just about 500%. Those 2 or 3 hours can heat the home from 22.5°C to ~24°C and the home being so efficient stays usually above 23°C until next day at 1:30. In fact the sheer mass of the hydronic heated floors with concrete is so huge that the max temperature is achieved way after the heating has been turned off.
This is one instance when intermitent heating can be cheaper even with heatpumps and heated floors. The fact that electricity is free at certain times and than a very efficient home can keep heat so well changes the landscape.
With that out side temperature and insulation you should be getting above 5 cop/scop
@@HeatGeek I meant that with outside temperature of ~10°C and heating the water in the heated floors to 32°C the COP is ~5 (the official COP at 7°C outside heating water to 35°C is 4.85). The combination of heatpump with free energy around noon (solar panels at its peak) and the very high inertia heating floors has been amazing this winter. Essentially I pay absolutely nothing all year around.
@@MiguelCamba i got the point- actually the hourly rate on electricity is very different on daily AND hourly basis as well...so even without solar panels it may be a good idea.
@@danholm99 the benefit is two folded. First, it’s when you generate the most power. But secondly, it’s the warmest moment of the day and when the heatpump gets the best efficiency of the day. The difference between generating heat when it’s -1C and when it’s +10C it’s significant
@@MiguelCamba yeah...the electricity is always cheapest when u dont need it. But the idea of warming up when it is cheap...in this case it would probably be better with radiators u could warm up to 55 degrees celcius and then just shut down the heat pump and turn it on by timer maybe 10 min. every hour to get the ciculation pump to work. I guess the heat would drop about 7 degrees per hous so u could have heat above 35 for almost 4 hours + 3 times 10 mins. on/off
Everything depends on the level of insulation the property have. Cavity insulation on all external walls means all internal walls will heat up with in a few months and help keep the heating off saving gas/money. If you don’t have good insulation costs will be higher regardless of strategy with heating system.
Great video - as a gas Engineer with poor training it’s beneficial 👍🏻
Your channel deserves way more likes and subscriptions. Liked and subscribed.
I noticed for us personally our electricity charge per kw has gone up 10p. But our off peak has actually gone down by 3 p. So thinking of setting our electric radiators on a low temp during the night and make sure our house is insulated well.
are you able to heat your house with off peak electricity?
@@ThomasBomb45 tbh our house doesnt retain the heat for long enough. I found our house was pretty cold by the evening. Maybe I need to insulate more.
Have a very old non condensing oil boiler. Changing is not an option at the mo. House is a lot of cold stone and not the best insulated. Bettter to keep runing low or just off and on when needed
'Also, great video,
off and on when needed with a high flow temperature
We have a Geothermal GSHP and constant is the way to go with this system. The reason is going from say 68F to 72F will cause the 'toaster heat' to activate. So steady state is the way to go with our system.
Brilliant - anyone engagibg this conversation should just link here. Thanks Heat Geek!
Great vid, I understand the theory, i just can't work out what is optimal for me.
-New build (2022) 3 bed semi.
-Gas CH.
-1 person in house Working From Home 90%>
-2 zone (uppper and ground floor) system with Thermo radiators and 2x nest smart thermostats.
Currently I:
-Turn if all off/off during night,
-manually turn on both zones in the morning for a quick 30 minute 'heat up'
Then for remainder of day i leave upstairs (where office is) set to 18 (all radiator thermostats apart from office on 2, office on max chat) and ground floor turned off. This is *just* about cosy enough with a jumper on.
Then i basically reverse the process in the evening with downstairs set to 19 and upstairs off.
If i am at work or away at weekends (which I usually am) both zones default to eco (10°) ie off.
Might i be better off leaving upper floor ar 16° overnight then 18° all day?
I think my situation is fairly uncommon, and suspect it wont make a huge difference overall..
Welcome your thoughts.
*exactly* same situation as me, literally to the letter, be interested what (if anything) you work out!
The heating engineer that looks after my system (service and repairs) says his heating is on for 30 mins in the morning. That’s enough, he says. His ‘mrs’ doesn’t agree. I am with her on that one. He’s a cheap-skate.
I agree. I was recommended to have an on for daytime and off at night. Summer adjust the thermosat. For advanced digital systems set 2 temperature.
I have a simple situation: I have municipal heating // district heating and it is metered with little tubes glued to the radiators, where a liquid evaporates. and 70% are just calculated by the area of my apartment. so using it low and constantly lowers the amound evaporated. (the company looks at all the tubes, and how much was used and looks at the total amount of heat consumed in the house).
so, it's more or less just a little bit to cheese the system by running constant, it's not actually saving energy. and running constant means that I don't need to regulate heat all the time, I just let it run steadily.
oh by the way, looking at the wiki-article of district heating even shows one of the facilities where I get heat from.
EDIT: and what you told about thermal mass is absolutely right. I grew up in a building that was built in 1601, with walls that are half a meter thick (to the metrically challenged 1.5 to 2 foot). winter was hard because there was no insulation at all, but the heat stored from summer helped a lot.
This information is gold dust, am now running my baxi combi at 45-50° all day 6:30am - 8:30pm instead of having boiler on 3 times and set at 60-65°c, and the risk of being comfortable was unfortunately achieved. Set all trvs to 30 but control temp via boiler which is conveniently in the kitchen.
So far in the last 3 weeks daily usage is down from about £9 to £6.
This is a 1950’s detached bungalow.
So big thanks Adam, maybe ASHP in the not to distant future.
Buildings rarely fall below 16C? I got up yesterday to find my sitting room temperature was 6.5C. That's in a semi-detached house built 20 years ago with added loft insulation and cavity insulation. During this cold snap in UK, to achieve even a constant 16C indoors I'd need the boiler running all day and night
Yeah, I laughed when I heard him say that lol. It's only autumn and my kitchen had dropped to 15°C a few days in a row. It drops below 10°C in the winter. The lowest it's got is 5°C. I have cavity wall insulation and loft insulation.
@@EtherealSunset one or two people have said that the concrete floor under my sitting room is to blame for it always being a degree or so below other rooms
We are in our first full year in a huge, Victorian house. We can’t believe how dramatically easier it is to heat a house if it’s very, very well insulated and has underfloor heating with a modern gas boiler.
6 months later and I believe things have changed. The question for many now is "should I leave the heating turned off permanently" This winter I'm gonna explore a toughening up route. Like first thing in the morning have a hot breakfast and then do a vigorous fitness workout. After a quick shower, dress up with many layers of good clothing. Any time during the day when the house (and I) feels cold I'll do several runs up and down the stairs followed by hot coffee. By around January I'd expect my body to have become adapted to colder conditions. Maybe let up for the Christmas period and have the stat on 16° to give myself a treat. 2022 is feeling worse than 1922..
I think this video is totally relevant still. Still have it in permanent where is suits as described, but what target temperature should I turn down to. The and answer is one you can afford
@@HeatGeek Absolutely! Your channel is very relevant. My comment is related to our local energy prices having doubled since last year and therefore I dread the coming Winter. And yes, I'm on low income so I'll have to brave it out like many others ☺
😂😂😂😂
As a lad from Yorkshire my daily life was like that but about 10 degrees colder !
I have a 45 year old boiler in my 2 bedroom house, where I live alone. I leave it running 24/7 turning the thermostat down at night and when I’m at work. It doesn’t go any lower than 17.5 degrees C. (I hate being cold) it takes so long to warm up if I switch it off instead of down. When I 1st moved into my place I used to turn it off at night and during work but found it much better to leave it on. I now have a hamster called Horace so it’s even more essential I keep it the heating on low 🤗
We've had a Mastertherm gshp fitted end of Nov. For the sake of explanation, it's 7 beds, detached and in the flatlands of Linc's where there is no protection from the weather.
Underfloor heating downstairs, new double(type 22) rads upstairs with 22mm lagged pipe throughout. Cavity wall insulation and 200mm (ish) of loft insulation. Some new d glazing, some old.
We used to have oil fired central heating from a 1990's boiler.
Right, intro over........
The heat pump works perfectly for heating and dhw.
The biggest thing we have come to realise is that the way the heat pump reacts in order to heat your house is SO different to a gas/oil boiler. As Heat Geek has said- it takes time to react, in our case; I have just finished replacing the heat emitters (rads) and once I turned the heat pump back on it has taken a couple of days to get the house back up to temp. You cannot crank up the room stat and get a toasty house in half an hour !
We leave the heating on 24/7. We are in the house all of the time. We use only the weather compensation on the heat pump to regulate the house temp, we have turned up the underfloor heating and bedroom areas wall stats to stats to max- downstairs stays a steady 21°c and upstairs 19°c. How is this efficient? Well this is down to a very very thorough EPC being conducted before the Gshp was installed along with a comprehensive heat loss calculation carried out by the installer.
What we have is a system that trickles just enough heat into the house to offset the amount lost- weather compensation is king here.
We are saving money. We used to spend approx £1200 per year on oil.
So far, since Nov we have spent £500 in total on electricity (that's total electricity, not just the heat pump)
So those that have a heat pump and it's costing a fortune to run; I would ask a couple of questions
1. Was it comprehensively designed by the installation company using an up to date EPC factoring in the data when the heat loss calculation was carried out.
2. Was it installed correctly and to a high standard ?
3. Are you constantly tinkering with the heating curve, not using the weather compensation or turning up/ down the room stats ?
"Slow n steady wins the race...." Or in all our cases, it heats the house.
Excellent video Heat Geek keep up the good work in educating us all. 👍🏻
That all sounds great, but whats the payback period for the cost of the GSHP system and all those thermal envelope upgrades. The system alone must have cost you around £15K.
Hello @Damian Craddock The system was expensive just shy of £30k but we are very fortunate and grateful that we had some savings. The Rhi will pay us approx £28k back over 7 years, therefore the new heating system, pipes and rads (I'd already fitted the ufloor heating) will have cost us approx £3k. That along with the savings between the oil and electricity used should bring the cost down even further. It is not affordable for everyone as it's a massive upfront cost, but as I said we are fortunate and grateful we had the spare cash at this time.
@@johnbarleycorn7845 Great that long term it cost you 3k but people do not have 30k upfront or even if it was 10k people don’t have that. People cannot get on the housing ladder these days. Something needs to change.
A lot of people don’t have £3000 for a heating system.
@@delboy6384 I totally agree with you.
Please remember those of us in very old properties, like me, with a ground floor flat, concrete floors, and solid thick walls... but I do have double glazing. Perhaps y ou could cover how this advice can relate to us. What actions could we take to help the boiler.
I live in an old property like yours, but basement so not even ground floor, concrete floors and thick solid brick walls, single glazed sash windows. I keep every window open a tiny amount (1-2mm) all the time to allow ventilation to prevent condensation and mould. I used to run the boiler twice a day and nearly died of cold in between sessions. Now I run it all day long at about 18deg and it costs about 30% less than before. I haven't run the boiler at night but, having watched this video, now tempted to use a setback temp of 16deg as at this time of year (winter) the flat can drop to 13deg overnight and getting to 18deg from 13 can take about five hours.
Yesterday I got my estimated bill for the next year from Scottish Gas.
Current annual cost estimate
£1959.03
New annual cost estimate
£3708.15
Direct debit cost estimate
£3509.04
This channel is more important than ever
I had my gas central heating on a schedule and on average it was on for 4.5 hours a day.
I've now set it to 15 degrees on manual 24/7 and the average usage is 2.5 hours a day. Even in the minus temperatures we have been having recently.
So yes it's cheaper for me to leave it on constantly
Under 16’ and humidity over 60% means mould can grow.
I like the car journey example, but a lot of people are out at work, so if using non heat pump, just turn it off, my house takes about 30 minutes to heat up when I get home, and gets turned fully off when I go to bed, and have an electric oil heater in my bedroom if it gets really cold at night
My house takes 6 hours to heat up unless the boiler is working hard, and therefore less efficiently. Horses for courses#
My lifestyle is similar. I don't put the heat on at all in the morning - get up, get dressed, breakfast and away!! At night I come home and if I'm staying in I put the gas boiler on for an hour or two. House get comfortable and if by mid evening I'm getting cold I put a jumper on and in bed an electric blanket!!
I have worked in energy for 35 years and the rub is with a controlled gas/oil boiler in a high thermal mass dwelling that leaving heating on all day adds 10%, leaving it on all night adds a further 10%.Don't trust me though, do your own test.
My advice, run it in week one at 2/7hrs week days and 16/16hrs weekends. Then the next week 16x7hrs, then the next week 24x7hrs. Turn your room stat down at night and during the day on options 2 and 3. Then check your meter or smart. Only do this test if you can afford it. Room stats 21c max or 23c if your immobile.In the day or overnight about 17c.
Many heating engineers never fitted room thermostats....Big mistake, if you only have TRVs drop settings to 1 in rooms not in use to prevent damp. Boiler thermostat setting depend on how old your boiler is and what type. Seek advice from a couple of sources on this one.
Finally, Direct Debit charges are high and on the up, once you do your test look at the lowest cost per week then times it by 6 months to start giving you an idea of what you need to have in the bank to pay your bills.
if not already check your summer monthly usage now before the heating goes on. Good luck.
Oh, never leave hot water on all the time if you have a cylinder fed via your boiler.
This is an EXCELLENT video! A masterclass of providing real value to the viewer. Definitely worth a like 🙂
live in a council house and our gas boiler, condensing, is controlled by a thermostat in the coldest part of the house and is on all the time heating as required
@Heat Geek - Loving your approach & goals. One thing you've not included in this is the benefit of using excess solar PV to store energy (even if it's temporarily at poor COP) - I'm considering a high thermal mass floor with large PV & UFH. Enjoy Wednesday's sunshine on Thursday evening - thoughts?
Thankyou! Heating is our focus but definitely jave a video planned specifically on utilising solar
Assuming a modern gas boiler and (and assuming you used the free cavity/roof insulation offers when they were available years ago), Set your heating to the outside temp, and then turn it up by 1C at a time (waiting at least half an hour between each) until you are not uncomfortable but not cold. this is the temp you need to set at night or times of non occupancy. Then turn it up 0.5C at a time (with 1 hour waits) until you are just comfortable. That's the temperature you need to set during occupancy time.
You save by setting semi-constant and low heat settings because: (1) your boiler will work at its most efficient when set at low temps for long times rather than at high temps for short bursts, and (2) your house maintains the heat better when the differential between inside and outside is as low as possible.
Many people turn up the heat for psychological comfort rather than physical comfort, but its less psychologically comfortable today when you will be worrying about the bills! Also, if you have a non uniform house with cold rooms, the problem is often poor settings on the radiators; radiator-thermostat valves are the answer, and NOT heating the house with the coldest room in mind. Also, make sure they are not all just set fully-on (that is often the problem if you have them badly set up). Finally, non-bill payers are more likely to mess with the thermostat (I think we all know who we're talking about here!), and there may be some training involved here!
The temps you will use are often unexpectedly low. For us, they are 14C and 16.5C.
Big thing to remember; *you should not change the values if it gets colder*; the heating will maintain the set temps, so you don't need to change them higher! Our energy bills have actually gone *down* so far this Autumn since using this system.
Also, if you need to air the home or leave doors open, do it for 30 minutes max and do one room at a time; you lose the freshening effect soon after 30 minutes per room, and are just throwing heat away! Consider using air purifiers instead during the coldest weather period. I recommend Levoit (they're pretty cheap and the filters last forever if you clean them with a vacuum cleaner hose once a month - plus you can leave them constantly on on 'sleep' so the air never gets dusty)
It doesn't work like that. You need higher flow temperatures un winter
Great video. I have a four storey Georgian town house with an ancient gas boiler and traditional rads. Very expensive to run 😭
The channel I've been praying for. I have a 3 bed semi detached new build from 2015and has always been confused when the temperature numbers come into play on the thermostat. In winter I've always been confused with what to set my digital thermostats wall controls to before it becomes "you have the heating too high". I always putt it at about 21.5c but often still feels cold, but I worry going higher is basically like having the tap on at full blast. What is a good number to aim for before it's too high if you want to save money on bills?
The lowest your comfortable at. You'll find that as you reduce your flow temperature and elingate your heating times you'll be more comfortable at lower temperatures though. Watch the "mustbwatch before buying a smart stat" video that will be your biggest life change for comfort and cost
By chance, and that is a very truthful statement, I settled for a 16c and 18c split some long time ago and adjustments I have tried in order to reduce fuel usage have impacted on my comfort and overall health so I am back to a 16/18split. I am 78yoa without any major illnesses but aching bones and stiffness provide constant company!! 🙂 I should add that my property is relatively modern, 20years old, with double glazing, and excellent loft and cavity wall insulation.
Even after carefully listening to your advice, I still don't know what's best. I have a typical london brick victorian end-of-terrace property; I believe it's single skin but 2 bricks. Anyway, it's badly insulated but we have a modern boiler and radiators in each room. What we currently do is have the heating on in the mornings and evenings and set the thermostat to 19 degrees when it's mid-cold. When it's really cold, we have it on all day set at 20 degrees. My main motivation is to save money but try to have the inside just-comfortable.
1900s property here too, currently 7c outside, heating on 18c from 07:15 to 17:30 when it's then set to go to 19c until 22:00. Setback temp is the key, if it's too low then it will take ages to get back up to your set temp. Ours is setback to 16.5c and we are running with a flow temp. of 48c. It's a nice steady heat, far more comfortable and it's certainly no more expensive (for us) than 2 or 3 blasts of heat. A lot depends on your house usage, we are in most days so it is ideal for us. If we worked away during the day then we would (probably) go down the schedule route but maybe keep it at at least 16c during the day.
Your comment about "the missus" is funny. I helped a friend in work setup a home project with a wireless temp sensor and a relay controlling his boiler.
A few weeks later asked him how it was going and he said he'd thrown in the bin in a fit of rage during the final argument it caused with his spouse.
Having run sensors in most of my house rooms, and moved them around, changed sensor types etc. I would steer away from any actual numbers people give you for good comfort targets. Ignore the actual number and just add one or subtract one from it until you find what works. Go with what "feels" right. If you have an other half or family around, the WILL NOT accept opaque automation. You will need to provide them with controls, overrides, etc. Even if they are mostly dumbies like in large corporate offices, the zone thermostats are usually ignored.
A sensor of mine in the bedroom fell off the night stand and into a drawer of clothes. The next morning I woke up to a very cold room. Sure the sensor was fine, it was wrapped up nice and snug in a drawer full of clothes reporting 18*C, but the room I had to get out of bed into was 16.8*C! Brrrr..
With smart zone control (smart thermostate/valve per room wirelessly connected to central controller), like Evohome, you can decide the heating strategy per room dependant of its usage and heating source. Like setting the room and kitchen, with floor heating, to a more constant temperature (we are at home all day) and changing the temperature of the other rooms (sleeping rooms, study, bath room, etc.) with radiators according to their respective usage. All of this with an as low as possible max. water temperature of the condensing boiler (we use 50 gr C).
Great video. We have a 30's house, but refurbished and generally very well insulated and double glazed. We have a condensing gas boiler and the house heats up very quickly. I was interested though in your comment about the overnight temperature generally not dropping below 16. We live on the south coast (Sussex), so it's quite mild, and we're often down to 14 -15 overnight in winter. What should I look for first for heat loss? Loft is insulated so not sure where we're losing it...
I think Roger and Vicky know each other.
Great video as always. Can send this to our customers. We’re on a mission to reduced heating curves on heat pumps.
The temp out side over the last week hasn't got over freezing! If I set the night time setting to 17 it would never go off!
Depends on the heating source, however, if it is central forced air, definitely set the timers for lower at night and lower while away.
It comes down to a simple thing: on average, the house will be below the daytime comfort temperature (say 20°C), and since on average it will be lower than that, you are using less energy overall.
With "mass" heating systems and very slow heat transfer I'd go with leave it steady just because you'd never be in phase with the desired temperature.
what a well informed video I just changed my controls to TADO so looking to temper my home warmth while I am out working.. Thanks 😀😃😁
Holy shot. This is solid advice, explained fairly simply!
Agree with everything you say. The only issue with 'low and slow' is when kids leave doors open, building loses all its heat, and takes a long time to come back up to desired temperature. In this scenario, I think high temp to recover the desired comfort temp is preferable.
I think the solution there is to teach the children about energy and climate change.
@@HeatGeekin my case its not the kids but the misses. Its like trying to get blood out of a stone though.