Best way to operate central heating?

[Rich114]

Sure you don't have a small gas leak that you can't smell, just wondering as you said you had a large bill out of the blue without really changing anything substantial like electric cooker to gas etc.

The bill we got was literally 3x what it had been for the previous 3 months; and the temperatures weren't all that much lower. The only thing I'd done differently was to relocate the room thermostat from the kitchen to the lounge (as advised by the plumber), and then remove the thermo valves on the 2 lounge radiators (as it was in then in the same room as the room thermostat). Hence, thought I'd put the thermo valves back on (but keep the room thermostat in the lounge, as it makes sense to have it there rather than the kitchen), to see if it improves.

What would be the best way to check for the gas leak, and whereabouts should I be checking?

Thanks again, really helpful forum.

 

[WedgeAntillesRed2]

How big is your newly aquired detatched house and how big do you actually think your gas bills are. 24 kw boiler is the smallest i would fit for a flat, let alone a house, it might be working overtime.
Dans the man Rich, he wasnt being condescending.
Check with your neighbours and compare prices, and boiler sizes.
When one moves from the sowetos and ghettos into a mansion, one must expect higher utility rates.

 

[WedgeAntillesRed2]

There you go, you just answered your question! Your utility bills have been worked out on previous tennancy. They probably didnt use the boiler that much and for your first 3 months it was a guestimate.
Your now hammering it nails n tongs, working from home n all!

 

[Rich114]

How big is your newly aquired detatched house and how big do you actually think your gas bills are. 24 kw boiler is the smallest i would fit for a flat, let alone a house, it might be working overtime.
Dans the man Rich, he wasnt being condescending.
Check with your neighbours and compare prices, and boiler sizes.
When one moves from the sowetos and ghettos into a mansion, one must expect higher utility rates.

The house isn't exactly huge, but a moderately-large 3-bed detached (dormer bungalow); with conservatory and integrated garage inc utility room. uPVC DG, and moderate insulation (going to improve it).

My parents' and friend's house is about the same size and also detached, both also work from home so in about the same amount of time, and their gas bill is £60 a month on the same tarrif as us.

For the first 3 months (mid sept-mid nov) ours was the same as theirs for the same period, about £65 a month; but the meter is showing us owing £350 for just the last 2 months, so a 2.7x increase...

 

[Rich114]

There you go, you just answered your question! Your utility bills have been worked out on previous tennancy. They probably didnt use the boiler that much and for your first 3 months it was a guestimate.
Your now hammering it nails n tongs, working from home n all!

Good theory, but...we only paid for the exact gas we used, as I told them the meter reading the day we moved in, and then up to our bill date; so it's exact usage rather than estimates, and certainly not based on the previous owner unfortunately. I wish it was that simple, a 2.7x increase just seems like something's wrong...

 

[WedgeAntillesRed2]

The plot thickens

 

[UpgradeME]

For the first 3 months (mid sept-mid nov) ours was the same as theirs for the same period, about £65 a month; but the meter is showing us owing £350 for just the last 2 months, so a 2.7x increase...

A couple of points to consider:

1) Gas prices generally went up in Nov (BG's for example increased by 40%) which may account for some of the increase (check what rate you are/were paying!)

2) You should not have TRV on the rad(s) where you have the room thermostat, otherwise the room stat (which controls when to turn on/off the boiler) will continue asking the boiler to fire (using gas) if the TRV turns off before the room has reached its set temp!

3) One way to check for a leak would be to turn off all gas appliances, take a meter reading, then perhaps after going out for the day checking the meter to see if it's moved!?

4) £175 per month on gas sounds very high to me, it's also 2.7x what I paid over the same period to heat a 4 bed detached every day to 19/20C. I would recommend that using this site, you work out what your heat loss is for your house, that will help people on here to diagnose further.

 

[plumberdan]

Removing all the radiator thermostats in the house and putting the room stat in the freezer will not cost you that much, my heating is on from 6am till 11:30pm at 23 degree with boiler at a flow temp of 65-70 365 days a year, £60.00 per month all rad stats on full double glazed 3bed terraced no cavity wall insulation and two large single Paine draughty windows in front room, large air vent in all upstairs rooms to outside every window is draughty don't seal right. Gas cooker and hob. 4 children 2 adults so we get through some cooking. As for the leak gas safe engineer job really, to test the soundness of your gas installation from the gas meter test nipple.

 

[plumberdan]

Don't turn off any appliances without been able to check your gas installation for soundness, the gas isolation cocks may leak once disturbed and when you turn a light on in the morning the bill will become the least of your problems, which cloud to sit on will be instead.

 

[UpgradeME]

Don't turn off any appliances without been able to check your gas installation for soundness, the gas isolation cocks may leak once disturbed and when you turn a light on in the morning the bill will become the least of your problems, which cloud to sit on will be instead.

Perhaps I should have phrased it differently above!? - What I meant, was don't use (switch off electric supply) any gas appliances for a period of time, checking meter readings before/after... I do agree that getting a RGI to perform a tightness test is the most reliable way to identify any potential leaks though!

 

[Rich114]

A couple of points to consider:

1) Gas prices generally went up in Nov (BG's for example increased by 40%) which may account for some of the increase (check what rate you are/were paying!)

2) You should not have TRV on the rad(s) where you have the room thermostat, otherwise the room stat (which controls when to turn on/off the boiler) will continue asking the boiler to fire (using gas) if the TRV turns off before the room has reached its set temp!

3) One way to check for a leak would be to turn off all gas appliances, take a meter reading, then perhaps after going out for the day checking the meter to see if it's moved!?

4) £175 per month on gas sounds very high to me, it's also 2.7x what I paid over the same period to heat a 4 bed detached every day to 19/20C. I would recommend that using this site, you work out what your heat loss is for your house, that will help people on here to diagnose further.

Thanks for your reply:

1. We are with BG, and I'll enquire about the tariff; though we weren't notified of an increase, and it's still 270% higher rather than 40%...

2. Thanks, I'll remove them again. The lounge seems to get hotter much quicker than other rooms downstairs (with the rads on the same setting, and doors either open or half-open): is there a way to decrease the heat output of the lounge radiators (not just the TRVs) so it's more even?

3. Will do this tomorrow, thanks.

4. I'll have a look at the site, thanks for the link.


I have upstairs rooms closed during the day, and only have the lounge/office doors open (the hall connects the two rooms). As I'm wanting a stable temp across all 3, I guess that's the best way to do it (rather than keeping the lounge/office doors closed?).

During the evening, I also often see the room thermostat at 20°, despite it being set at 18.5° (it's positioned in the lounge on top of the mantlepiece as we don't use the fire; just across the (relatively small) room from the 2 lounge radiators on the back wall). It doesn't always do this, but I wonder why the room's allowed to heat up more than it should; perhaps due to point 2 above: the lounge radiators are set too high (regardless of TRVs)?

 

[RigidRaider]

Coming fresh to this post as an amateur plumber and a home-owner with a wife who is always whingeing that she's cold, one point strikes me as obvious:

No matter how much you mess around with boiler settings, TRV settings, open doors/shut doors, thermostat position, in the end you need to supply a certain amount of thermal energy to the building in order to warm up the internal structure and contents to the point where you eliminate cold spots. In my experience you are doing yourself no favours by allowing the house to cool down; you would do better to run the CH at a constant lower temperature to ensure thorough heating of the structure than blasting it twice a day. In order for this to work it follows that the insulation MUST be adequate; we have actually halved our gas bill in two houses we have owned simply by topping up the loft insulation from the bare minimum probably 100 - 150 mm installed by the builder to double or even treble that. Loft insulation is easy to install yourself and if you search for deals on the web you can get it very cheap at this time of year.

Improving the loft insulation brings the double benefit of dramatically lower bills and making the whole house feel silky warm. Some say that it also deadens outside sound. As I wrote above no amount of messing around will allow you to squeeze more efficiency out of the boiler if all that thermal energy is just going straight out through the roof.

 

[Rich114]

Coming fresh to this post as an amateur plumber and a home-owner with a wife who is always whingeing that she's cold, one point strikes me as obvious:

No matter how much you mess around with boiler settings, TRV settings, open doors/shut doors, thermostat position, in the end you need to supply a certain amount of thermal energy to the building in order to warm up the internal structure and contents to the point where you eliminate cold spots. In my experience you are doing yourself no favours by allowing the house to cool down; you would do better to run the CH at a constant lower temperature to ensure thorough heating of the structure than blasting it twice a day. In order for this to work it follows that the insulation MUST be adequate; we have actually halved our gas bill in two houses we have owned simply by topping up the loft insulation from the bare minimum probably 100 - 150 mm installed by the builder to double or even treble that. Loft insulation is easy to install yourself and if you search for deals on the web you can get it very cheap at this time of year.

Improving the loft insulation brings the double benefit of dramatically lower bills and making the whole house feel silky warm. Some say that it also deadens outside sound. As I wrote above no amount of messing around will allow you to squeeze more efficiency out of the boiler if all that thermal energy is just going straight out through the roof.

Thanks for this; I'll definitely get some decent loft insulation up there, seems to be pretty cheap. I'm trying to find out why my first gas bill was £65/month, and the second was £175/month, despite temperatures not being all that lower; but certainly I'll do everything I can re insulation.

Re. keeping the house at a constant temp rather than letting it cool down all the time; what temp what you suggest is the lowest to keep it at (for rooms that aren't used much), and would you do this for all individual rooms, even bathroom etc. that is only used for maybe 1 hour a day max.? Going to get some of those individual timer valves for a number of rooms.

 

[RigidRaider]

When we go away skiing in winter we leave the hallway 'stat set to 15 and the CH on permanent. I have in the past come back from a week's winter holiday to find the house at 7 degrees and the boiler then takes three days to re-warm the entire inside. Leaving it on full time for a week probably doesn't cost much more than flogging it for 3 days and at least the house feels warm within a couple of hours of getting home and turning it up.

Our hall is cool and in normal running we leave the room 'stat set at 19, which means the lounge and bedrooms are usually at around 21 because they have bigger rads and they don't have the huge cold area of glass and front door.

As for running the CH full time, you'd need to experiment but with our layout I reckon setting the 'stat at 18 would mean the rooms would stay at a reasonable 20 or 21.

Sorry to say this but your posts show an over-obsession with the finer details of thermostats, TRVs and doors, which contrasts strongly with your surprisingly relaxed attitude to the important matter of loft insulation!

 

[Rich114]

As for running the CH full time, you'd need to experiment but with our layout I reckon setting the 'stat at 18 would mean the rooms would stay at a reasonable 20 or 21.

Sorry to say this but your posts show an over-obsession with the finer details of thermostats, TRVs and doors, which contrasts strongly with your surprisingly relaxed attitude to the important matter of loft insulation!

I assume your room thermostat is in your hall (or another room) then, rather than lounge etc. (presumably the rooms that are 20/21°)?

I'm not over-obsessed (not that that would be a bad thing, as details do matter - making a small change in a number of areas, can add up to a significant improvement overall); and your assumption that I'm unconcerned with loft insulation certainly isn't correct! The point is that a) I know loft insulation has to be improved, and it's just a simple thing to do (though effective, granted), which I don't need any advice for, hence all my questions/responses revolve around the finer details/specifics of the central heating; and b) These small changes can be done in literally 1 minute, and be immediately effective, rather than having to measure up/buy/install loft insulation, which will take a few days at a minimum for me to find the time to do it.

I always pay attention to details, as they can make all the difference, and specifically here, it's these details that people on here all know about/have picked up over the years, that consumers may not know about or fully understand. And, if I've come across as over-obsessed (I prefer attentive and thorough!), it's simply in an attempt to save myself a significant amount of money from the crazy bills we're paying at the moment!

The main area of concern is that our gas usage has almost tripled (regardless of the finer details/settings/any insulation, which have remained constant), despite average temperatures and occupancy/usage being very similar over the whole period; so the main thing I want to do is to find out why this change has happened.

Thanks for everyone's help, there's certainly a lot of areas to look at - and, yes I will prioritise the loft insulation, *as well as* doing all the other things mentioned.